On Monday, Oct. 8, 4 major newspapers carried news stories or editorials bemoaning the risisng costs of education at the U.C. ( See below).
the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, the Sacramento Bee, the Ventura County press, and the San Diego Union- among others.
This convergence is not likely to be an accident. There is a campaign here.
The Sacramento Bee editorial rebukes Treasurer Bill Lockyer- for his description of alternatives. Fair enough.
here is another alternative not mentioned in the MSM.
If Lockyer, Schwarzenegger and others wish to privatize the U.C.,
we should insist that the new private owners repay the people’s investment.
Lets see. 120 years of investment + interest.
And then, we have legislators educated at U.C. Pete Wilson paid $50 per semester for law school. The present cost is $24,000 per year. So, , each of these legislators should repay 24,000 per year ( the current cost) X 3 years. And, add interest.
And a similar bill for each medical graduate and MBA graduate.
And then, there is the value of the property.
To do any less would be “ a gift of public funds”, and illegal.
Duane Campbell
Monday, October 08, 2007
The moderate faculty
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/08/politics
The Liberal (and Moderating) Professoriate
Faculty members identify as liberals and vote Democratic in far greater
proportions than found in the American public at large. That finding by
itself won't shock many, but the national study released Saturday at a
Harvard University symposium may be notable both for its methodology and
other, more surprising findings.
The 72-page study - "The Social and Political Views of American
Professors" - was produced with the goal of moving analysis of the
political views of faculty members out of the culture wars and back to
social science. The study offers at times harsh criticism of many of the
analyses of these issues in recent years (both from those hoping to tag
the professoriate as foolishly radical and those seeking to rebut those
charges). The study included community college professors along with
four-year institutions, and featured analysis of non-responders to the
survey (two features missing from many recent reports).
The results of the study find a professoriate that may be less liberal
than is widely assumed, even if conservatives are correctly assumed to
be in a distinct minority. The authors present evidence that there are
more faculty members who identify as moderates than as liberals. The
authors of the study also found evidence of a significant decline by age
group in faculty radicalism, with younger faculty members less likely
than their older counterparts to identify as radical or activist. And
while the study found that faculty members generally hold what are
thought to be liberal positions on social issues, professors are divided
on affirmative action in college admissions.
More: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/08/politics
__._,_.___
The Liberal (and Moderating) Professoriate
Faculty members identify as liberals and vote Democratic in far greater
proportions than found in the American public at large. That finding by
itself won't shock many, but the national study released Saturday at a
Harvard University symposium may be notable both for its methodology and
other, more surprising findings.
The 72-page study - "The Social and Political Views of American
Professors" - was produced with the goal of moving analysis of the
political views of faculty members out of the culture wars and back to
social science. The study offers at times harsh criticism of many of the
analyses of these issues in recent years (both from those hoping to tag
the professoriate as foolishly radical and those seeking to rebut those
charges). The study included community college professors along with
four-year institutions, and featured analysis of non-responders to the
survey (two features missing from many recent reports).
The results of the study find a professoriate that may be less liberal
than is widely assumed, even if conservatives are correctly assumed to
be in a distinct minority. The authors present evidence that there are
more faculty members who identify as moderates than as liberals. The
authors of the study also found evidence of a significant decline by age
group in faculty radicalism, with younger faculty members less likely
than their older counterparts to identify as radical or activist. And
while the study found that faculty members generally hold what are
thought to be liberal positions on social issues, professors are divided
on affirmative action in college admissions.
More: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/08/politics
__._,_.___
Sunday, October 07, 2007
U.C. on the road to privatization?
Less to bank on at state universities
Educators fear a 2004 funding deal has schools sliding toward mediocrity
By Richard C. Paddock
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 7, 2007
SANTA BARBARA — Library assistant Linda Snook isn't usually someone to stand up in front of hundreds of people and discuss her personal finances. But when the UC Board of Regents met here this summer, she pleaded for help.
Snook told the regents that she makes $26,000 a year working full time at UC Santa Barbara and pays more than half of that in rent. Her supervisors have recommended her for raises, she said, but there is never enough money in the budget. She'd like to enroll in graduate school at UCSB, but, on her pay, that's a distant dream.
"I am barely making it," she told the regents. "We're not paid what the private sector would make. We desperately, desperately need help. Please."
These days, such appeals are commonplace. Students, custodians, campus police, clerical workers, faculty and administrators regularly beseech the regents to give them more money.
But soaring student fees, huge fundraising drives and controversial corporate donations have not made up for a sharp decline in the state's commitment to higher education. UC administrators and faculty fear that waning commitment is eroding the 10-campus system's reputation for excellence and will trigger a slide toward mediocrity. Already, the salaries of professors and workers lag behind comparable institutions while faculty posts remain open and more classes are taught by teaching assistants.
Administrators and faculty also worry that the University of California and the 23-campus California State University will become de facto private institutions, where most of the costs are paid by students.
Officials at UC and CSU say that each institution needs about $1 billion more in annual funding to match their level of quality in 2001, the last time the universities were in relatively good fiscal health.
University leaders say the two public institutions are the state's engine of long-term growth and its main supplier of highly skilled workers. But the universities' importance to state policymakers is declining, at least as measured in tax dollars.
In 1970, the state spent 6.9% of its budget on the University of California. Today it spends 3.2%. In 1965, the state covered 94.4% of a UC student's education. Last year it paid 58.5%.
This year, California will spend an estimated $3.3 billion to operate UC. It will spend three times as much -- $9.9 billion -- to run the state's prisons.
Unlike other state-sponsored programs -- such as health, schools and community colleges -- UC and CSU have no level of state funding guaranteed by law. Will the two huge university systems, with 665,000 students, become the equivalent of private institutions?
"I worry about it every day, because we must continue to look for other sources of support," said UC President Robert C. Dynes. "And the question is, do we end up becoming a private institution to get those resources?"
In May 2004, Dynes and his CSU counterpart, Chancellor Charles Reed, traveled to Sacramento to meet privately with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The state was facing a $14-billion shortfall and the new governor was threatening the universities with major cutbacks for the third consecutive year.
The two university chiefs struck a deal with the governor: They agreed to slash spending that year by hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for a funding formula lasting until 2011. Titled the "Higher Education Compact," the agreement calls for modest annual increases in state funds, private fundraising to help pay for basic programs, and large student fee hikes, especially for graduate and professional students.
There was no hearing on the pact; no legislative discussion; no vote. Many UC regents were not told of the deal until it was done. Richard C. Blum, who became the regents' chairman this year, called the lack of disclosure "an error in judgment."
Reed and Dynes, who will step down by June, say the compact stopped the universities' bleeding and gave them fiscal stability. But critics say the pact has left UC and CSU chronically underfunded and locked the universities into a steady decline.
"Bob Dynes and Charlie Reed fundamentally changed the nature of higher education in California without any public debate," said Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco who chaired a faculty committee that analyzed the agreement.
"The effect of the compact is a permanent substantial reduction in the quality of the university."
The compact itself acknowledges that the universities have "significant unmet funding needs. . . and insufficient funding of programs critical to the academic enterprise."
Among its many provisions, the compact set a little-noticed precedent by calling for the use of private fundraising to pay for core university operations. "UC will continue to seek additional private resources and maximize other fund sources available to the University to support basic programs," it says.
Long gone are the days when Californians were willing to pay taxes to build three new UC campuses in a five-year span and subsidize annual student fees of less than $250.
"There is this myth out there that citizens can get better roads, cleaner air, get their garbage picked up twice a week, be protected by police and fire and it won't cost them anything," Reed said. "People have been singing that song for 20 years."
Reed predicts that within five years the state will be spending more on prisons than on UC, CSU and the community colleges combined.
"That will be a real tragedy in this state," he said. "It will send out the signal that California has world-class prisons and second-class universities. If we had better-prepared citizens, a better-prepared workforce, we would have less need for prisons."
When Schwarzenegger took office in November 2003, the state faced a fiscal crisis. At UC, enrollment had risen 18% even as then-Gov. Gray Davis cut its budget by 14%, breaking his own pact with the universities.
To reorganize the state's finances, Schwarzenegger recruited Donna Arduin, an advocate of privatizing government services who had been Florida budget director under Gov. Jeb Bush. As California finance director, she soon became known as Schwarzenegger's "bad cop."
Her budget plan for UC and CSU called for hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts for the third consecutive year, major student fee hikes, a reduction in enrollment and a plan to steer thousands of students to community colleges instead of the universities.
Dynes and Reed quietly began negotiating with the popular Republican governor.
At stake was California's tradition of maintaining low student fees, which have helped keep the universities accessible to the poor and promoted ethnic diversity. CSU has the lowest fees of any public university in the nation, Reed says, and 54% of its students are nonwhite.
Supporters of more privatization argue that the universities' main beneficiaries are the individual students, who greatly increase their earning power by obtaining a degree. But public education advocates argue that the universities provide a major social benefit in preparing California's workforce and developing technology that helps power the economy.
In announcing the compact on May 11, 2004, Schwarzenegger said that he, Dynes and Reed had "found a compromise that will protect the quality of our world-renowned higher-education system."
But much of Arduin's agenda for the universities survived, including more budget cuts, major student fee hikes and shifting freshmen to community colleges.
"Behind the scenes we had great cooperation," recalled Arduin, who left California after 11 months. "The universities were one of the first to the table, and they proposed a comprehensive approach. It was a very amicable agreement among all the parties."
The compact is similar to deals worked out with the previous three governors. But critics accuse Dynes and Reed of undercutting the Legislature and negotiating a bad deal.
Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who like Schwarzenegger sits on the governing boards of both institutions, calls the pact a disaster.
"This compact is a formula for the diminution of both UC and CSU," he said. "It's a formula that ratchets down the state's funding."
A study by UC's Academic Senate concluded that during the life of the compact, UC will never return to the spending level of 2001, before the Davis and Schwarzenegger administrations' cuts.
During previous budget cycles, state spending cuts made in bad years were at least partly restored when the economy improved. But critics say the compact has locked in the reduced funding.
At UC, the spending gap means that faculty salaries lag nearly 15% behind comparable institutions, while salaries for campus workers like library assistant Snook trail the market by at least 10%. Needed seismic retrofitting and building improvements are delayed. And fewer top graduate students are choosing to attend UC, a key indicator of a research university's decline.
UC's spending gap is now $1.1 billion, the faculty study found, and will steadily grow for the duration of the compact despite modest increases provided by the agreement.
Similarly, Reed said, CSU faces an annual shortfall of $800 million to $1 billion.
"The compact permanently reduces the fraction of core funds the state provides," UCSB professor Christopher Newfield, chairman of the faculty Senate's planning and budget committee, told the regents in July as he presented the faculty findings.
Private fundraising, he said, cannot offset the loss in public funds. For UC to return to its 2001 spending level without an increase in state funds, he told the regents, would require raising the basic annual undergraduate fee from $6,366 to at least $15,000 in three years, with large increases thereafter.
"We're at a crossroads in public investment," Newfield said in an interview. "California had a good record in the past, but I think we have lost our memory of what we did. We're living on our past investment."
Though defenders of the compact acknowledge the budget gap, they say the universities would be in even worse shape without the pact. Their mantra: The compact sets a floor for state spending, not a ceiling.
In some years, they point out, Sacramento has given the universities more than the compact requires, including last year -- an election year -- when the governor and Legislature absorbed an expected 8% student fee hike.
"I think that the compact is a very good thing," Reed said. "What people don't have a great appreciation for is how the compact has protected UC and CSU from a stability standpoint."
This summer, when Republican legislators proposed cutting higher education below the level of the compact, Schwarzenegger weighed in on the side of the universities. The lawmakers backed off. "Thank goodness for the compact right now," Reed said.
CSU trustee Jeff Bleich agreed that the compact had kept the university from suffering larger cutbacks.
"The reason to do it is to establish some commitment from the governor for a floor," he said. "As long as you believe the governor means what he says, you can have some confidence for planning the growth of these massive institutions."
Under the compact, the need to find new money sources is most evident in UC's professional programs, especially including its renowned law and business schools. After the compact was signed, average fees at UC's 34 professional schools soared 30% in 2004 alone.
"We wound up having to take huge cuts in law and business, and they have been reeling ever since," said Larry Hershman, a former vice president for budget at UC who helped negotiate the compact. "This was the Donna Arduin view, to make these schools self-supporting, the students paying much more and the public paying much less."
Supporters of the fee hikes say that students in law, business and medicine can afford to pay more because they will be able to command large salaries later. They argue that the burden of paying for an education should fall more heavily on students.
Dynes said that some state institutions, such as the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia, have led the way in raising tuition and luring higher-paying students from other states and countries.
"If you look at Michigan and the number of out-of-state students, you realize they have privatized," Dynes said. "It's not a criticism. They have just chosen a different path."
But critics say higher fees deter underprivileged students from applying and make it harder for newly graduated lawyers, doctors or other health professionals to enter a life of public service.
The compact calls on UC to develop multiyear plans for fee hikes at the professional schools that take into account market factors and fees at comparable institutions, including Michigan.
In September, the regents approved a three-year plan to increase fees at the professional schools by 7% to 15% a year. At UC Berkeley's business and law schools, fees will rise to more than $40,000 a year.
Undergraduates have fared better, but have seen fees rise by 90% over the last six years.
Earlier this year, the UC regents and the CSU trustees voted to raise undergraduate fees 7% and graduate fees 10%. Some expressed frustration that they had no choice in the matter.
"Every year when fee increases come up, it's treated as a big crisis, but it's programmed into the compact," Glantz said. "Students are paying more and getting less."
Glantz, a tobacco researcher who has spent years fighting the industry, says UC's need for corporate money has contributed to its reluctance to ban tobacco industry research grants, including $16.6 million that Philip Morris USA is giving to researchers at seven UC campuses.
"People are desperate for cash because the infrastructure of the university is coming unglued as we watch," Glantz said.
Other grants also have stirred controversy, including a $500-million donation by oil giant BP to form a joint UC-BP research laboratory at UC Berkeley to develop biofuels. BP researchers will work alongside UC professors, and the company will have exclusive rights to some of the expected discoveries.
"The compact is driving the UC and CSU systems to seek funds from corporations at an unprecedented rate," said John Simpson, an advocate with the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. "What we are witnessing is the corporate privatization of what was once the nation's greatest public education system."
Educators say that maintaining competitive faculty salaries is the key to preserving the quality of the universities. But during hard times, pay raises have been the first thing to go.
The pay disparity has left UC open to raids by elite private universities. To help shore up the faculty at UC Berkeley, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced in September that it would give the campus $113 million -- the school's largest gift ever -- to endow 100 faculty chairs.
Both UC and CSU have adopted plans to raise salaries to market levels over the next four years.
"The No. 1 goal is to get the faculty more money," said Blum, the regents' chairman, who in August called for overhauling UC's administration in hopes of saving many millions of dollars.
Whether Blum can solve UC's financial problems by restructuring its operations remains to be seen.
Linda Snook, the library assistant, wasn't the only university employee to ask for help at the July meeting in Santa Barbara. Victor Vincent, a custodian at UCLA for 17 years, told the regents: "We can't even afford to send our kids to the university, and we don't understand why you don't understand that. We are suffering, and we need somebody to help us."
William Schlitz, political and communications director for the American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees, says UC is shifting more of its costs to campus employees, including doubling healthcare fees for some. UCSB, he said, has begun charging custodians who work the midnight shift $150 a month to park in an otherwise empty lot.
"At some point there needs to be a frank discussion: Is this the public's university or not?" Schlitz said. "It's scary. These are great institutions, but it's an uncertain future, and it's an uncertain future for the employees."
richard.paddock@latimes.com
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partners:
Educators fear a 2004 funding deal has schools sliding toward mediocrity
By Richard C. Paddock
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 7, 2007
SANTA BARBARA — Library assistant Linda Snook isn't usually someone to stand up in front of hundreds of people and discuss her personal finances. But when the UC Board of Regents met here this summer, she pleaded for help.
Snook told the regents that she makes $26,000 a year working full time at UC Santa Barbara and pays more than half of that in rent. Her supervisors have recommended her for raises, she said, but there is never enough money in the budget. She'd like to enroll in graduate school at UCSB, but, on her pay, that's a distant dream.
"I am barely making it," she told the regents. "We're not paid what the private sector would make. We desperately, desperately need help. Please."
These days, such appeals are commonplace. Students, custodians, campus police, clerical workers, faculty and administrators regularly beseech the regents to give them more money.
But soaring student fees, huge fundraising drives and controversial corporate donations have not made up for a sharp decline in the state's commitment to higher education. UC administrators and faculty fear that waning commitment is eroding the 10-campus system's reputation for excellence and will trigger a slide toward mediocrity. Already, the salaries of professors and workers lag behind comparable institutions while faculty posts remain open and more classes are taught by teaching assistants.
Administrators and faculty also worry that the University of California and the 23-campus California State University will become de facto private institutions, where most of the costs are paid by students.
Officials at UC and CSU say that each institution needs about $1 billion more in annual funding to match their level of quality in 2001, the last time the universities were in relatively good fiscal health.
University leaders say the two public institutions are the state's engine of long-term growth and its main supplier of highly skilled workers. But the universities' importance to state policymakers is declining, at least as measured in tax dollars.
In 1970, the state spent 6.9% of its budget on the University of California. Today it spends 3.2%. In 1965, the state covered 94.4% of a UC student's education. Last year it paid 58.5%.
This year, California will spend an estimated $3.3 billion to operate UC. It will spend three times as much -- $9.9 billion -- to run the state's prisons.
Unlike other state-sponsored programs -- such as health, schools and community colleges -- UC and CSU have no level of state funding guaranteed by law. Will the two huge university systems, with 665,000 students, become the equivalent of private institutions?
"I worry about it every day, because we must continue to look for other sources of support," said UC President Robert C. Dynes. "And the question is, do we end up becoming a private institution to get those resources?"
In May 2004, Dynes and his CSU counterpart, Chancellor Charles Reed, traveled to Sacramento to meet privately with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The state was facing a $14-billion shortfall and the new governor was threatening the universities with major cutbacks for the third consecutive year.
The two university chiefs struck a deal with the governor: They agreed to slash spending that year by hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for a funding formula lasting until 2011. Titled the "Higher Education Compact," the agreement calls for modest annual increases in state funds, private fundraising to help pay for basic programs, and large student fee hikes, especially for graduate and professional students.
There was no hearing on the pact; no legislative discussion; no vote. Many UC regents were not told of the deal until it was done. Richard C. Blum, who became the regents' chairman this year, called the lack of disclosure "an error in judgment."
Reed and Dynes, who will step down by June, say the compact stopped the universities' bleeding and gave them fiscal stability. But critics say the pact has left UC and CSU chronically underfunded and locked the universities into a steady decline.
"Bob Dynes and Charlie Reed fundamentally changed the nature of higher education in California without any public debate," said Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco who chaired a faculty committee that analyzed the agreement.
"The effect of the compact is a permanent substantial reduction in the quality of the university."
The compact itself acknowledges that the universities have "significant unmet funding needs. . . and insufficient funding of programs critical to the academic enterprise."
Among its many provisions, the compact set a little-noticed precedent by calling for the use of private fundraising to pay for core university operations. "UC will continue to seek additional private resources and maximize other fund sources available to the University to support basic programs," it says.
Long gone are the days when Californians were willing to pay taxes to build three new UC campuses in a five-year span and subsidize annual student fees of less than $250.
"There is this myth out there that citizens can get better roads, cleaner air, get their garbage picked up twice a week, be protected by police and fire and it won't cost them anything," Reed said. "People have been singing that song for 20 years."
Reed predicts that within five years the state will be spending more on prisons than on UC, CSU and the community colleges combined.
"That will be a real tragedy in this state," he said. "It will send out the signal that California has world-class prisons and second-class universities. If we had better-prepared citizens, a better-prepared workforce, we would have less need for prisons."
When Schwarzenegger took office in November 2003, the state faced a fiscal crisis. At UC, enrollment had risen 18% even as then-Gov. Gray Davis cut its budget by 14%, breaking his own pact with the universities.
To reorganize the state's finances, Schwarzenegger recruited Donna Arduin, an advocate of privatizing government services who had been Florida budget director under Gov. Jeb Bush. As California finance director, she soon became known as Schwarzenegger's "bad cop."
Her budget plan for UC and CSU called for hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts for the third consecutive year, major student fee hikes, a reduction in enrollment and a plan to steer thousands of students to community colleges instead of the universities.
Dynes and Reed quietly began negotiating with the popular Republican governor.
At stake was California's tradition of maintaining low student fees, which have helped keep the universities accessible to the poor and promoted ethnic diversity. CSU has the lowest fees of any public university in the nation, Reed says, and 54% of its students are nonwhite.
Supporters of more privatization argue that the universities' main beneficiaries are the individual students, who greatly increase their earning power by obtaining a degree. But public education advocates argue that the universities provide a major social benefit in preparing California's workforce and developing technology that helps power the economy.
In announcing the compact on May 11, 2004, Schwarzenegger said that he, Dynes and Reed had "found a compromise that will protect the quality of our world-renowned higher-education system."
But much of Arduin's agenda for the universities survived, including more budget cuts, major student fee hikes and shifting freshmen to community colleges.
"Behind the scenes we had great cooperation," recalled Arduin, who left California after 11 months. "The universities were one of the first to the table, and they proposed a comprehensive approach. It was a very amicable agreement among all the parties."
The compact is similar to deals worked out with the previous three governors. But critics accuse Dynes and Reed of undercutting the Legislature and negotiating a bad deal.
Democratic Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who like Schwarzenegger sits on the governing boards of both institutions, calls the pact a disaster.
"This compact is a formula for the diminution of both UC and CSU," he said. "It's a formula that ratchets down the state's funding."
A study by UC's Academic Senate concluded that during the life of the compact, UC will never return to the spending level of 2001, before the Davis and Schwarzenegger administrations' cuts.
During previous budget cycles, state spending cuts made in bad years were at least partly restored when the economy improved. But critics say the compact has locked in the reduced funding.
At UC, the spending gap means that faculty salaries lag nearly 15% behind comparable institutions, while salaries for campus workers like library assistant Snook trail the market by at least 10%. Needed seismic retrofitting and building improvements are delayed. And fewer top graduate students are choosing to attend UC, a key indicator of a research university's decline.
UC's spending gap is now $1.1 billion, the faculty study found, and will steadily grow for the duration of the compact despite modest increases provided by the agreement.
Similarly, Reed said, CSU faces an annual shortfall of $800 million to $1 billion.
"The compact permanently reduces the fraction of core funds the state provides," UCSB professor Christopher Newfield, chairman of the faculty Senate's planning and budget committee, told the regents in July as he presented the faculty findings.
Private fundraising, he said, cannot offset the loss in public funds. For UC to return to its 2001 spending level without an increase in state funds, he told the regents, would require raising the basic annual undergraduate fee from $6,366 to at least $15,000 in three years, with large increases thereafter.
"We're at a crossroads in public investment," Newfield said in an interview. "California had a good record in the past, but I think we have lost our memory of what we did. We're living on our past investment."
Though defenders of the compact acknowledge the budget gap, they say the universities would be in even worse shape without the pact. Their mantra: The compact sets a floor for state spending, not a ceiling.
In some years, they point out, Sacramento has given the universities more than the compact requires, including last year -- an election year -- when the governor and Legislature absorbed an expected 8% student fee hike.
"I think that the compact is a very good thing," Reed said. "What people don't have a great appreciation for is how the compact has protected UC and CSU from a stability standpoint."
This summer, when Republican legislators proposed cutting higher education below the level of the compact, Schwarzenegger weighed in on the side of the universities. The lawmakers backed off. "Thank goodness for the compact right now," Reed said.
CSU trustee Jeff Bleich agreed that the compact had kept the university from suffering larger cutbacks.
"The reason to do it is to establish some commitment from the governor for a floor," he said. "As long as you believe the governor means what he says, you can have some confidence for planning the growth of these massive institutions."
Under the compact, the need to find new money sources is most evident in UC's professional programs, especially including its renowned law and business schools. After the compact was signed, average fees at UC's 34 professional schools soared 30% in 2004 alone.
"We wound up having to take huge cuts in law and business, and they have been reeling ever since," said Larry Hershman, a former vice president for budget at UC who helped negotiate the compact. "This was the Donna Arduin view, to make these schools self-supporting, the students paying much more and the public paying much less."
Supporters of the fee hikes say that students in law, business and medicine can afford to pay more because they will be able to command large salaries later. They argue that the burden of paying for an education should fall more heavily on students.
Dynes said that some state institutions, such as the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia, have led the way in raising tuition and luring higher-paying students from other states and countries.
"If you look at Michigan and the number of out-of-state students, you realize they have privatized," Dynes said. "It's not a criticism. They have just chosen a different path."
But critics say higher fees deter underprivileged students from applying and make it harder for newly graduated lawyers, doctors or other health professionals to enter a life of public service.
The compact calls on UC to develop multiyear plans for fee hikes at the professional schools that take into account market factors and fees at comparable institutions, including Michigan.
In September, the regents approved a three-year plan to increase fees at the professional schools by 7% to 15% a year. At UC Berkeley's business and law schools, fees will rise to more than $40,000 a year.
Undergraduates have fared better, but have seen fees rise by 90% over the last six years.
Earlier this year, the UC regents and the CSU trustees voted to raise undergraduate fees 7% and graduate fees 10%. Some expressed frustration that they had no choice in the matter.
"Every year when fee increases come up, it's treated as a big crisis, but it's programmed into the compact," Glantz said. "Students are paying more and getting less."
Glantz, a tobacco researcher who has spent years fighting the industry, says UC's need for corporate money has contributed to its reluctance to ban tobacco industry research grants, including $16.6 million that Philip Morris USA is giving to researchers at seven UC campuses.
"People are desperate for cash because the infrastructure of the university is coming unglued as we watch," Glantz said.
Other grants also have stirred controversy, including a $500-million donation by oil giant BP to form a joint UC-BP research laboratory at UC Berkeley to develop biofuels. BP researchers will work alongside UC professors, and the company will have exclusive rights to some of the expected discoveries.
"The compact is driving the UC and CSU systems to seek funds from corporations at an unprecedented rate," said John Simpson, an advocate with the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. "What we are witnessing is the corporate privatization of what was once the nation's greatest public education system."
Educators say that maintaining competitive faculty salaries is the key to preserving the quality of the universities. But during hard times, pay raises have been the first thing to go.
The pay disparity has left UC open to raids by elite private universities. To help shore up the faculty at UC Berkeley, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced in September that it would give the campus $113 million -- the school's largest gift ever -- to endow 100 faculty chairs.
Both UC and CSU have adopted plans to raise salaries to market levels over the next four years.
"The No. 1 goal is to get the faculty more money," said Blum, the regents' chairman, who in August called for overhauling UC's administration in hopes of saving many millions of dollars.
Whether Blum can solve UC's financial problems by restructuring its operations remains to be seen.
Linda Snook, the library assistant, wasn't the only university employee to ask for help at the July meeting in Santa Barbara. Victor Vincent, a custodian at UCLA for 17 years, told the regents: "We can't even afford to send our kids to the university, and we don't understand why you don't understand that. We are suffering, and we need somebody to help us."
William Schlitz, political and communications director for the American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees, says UC is shifting more of its costs to campus employees, including doubling healthcare fees for some. UCSB, he said, has begun charging custodians who work the midnight shift $150 a month to park in an otherwise empty lot.
"At some point there needs to be a frank discussion: Is this the public's university or not?" Schlitz said. "It's scary. These are great institutions, but it's an uncertain future, and it's an uncertain future for the employees."
richard.paddock@latimes.com
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Saturday, October 06, 2007
A progressive agenda for public schools
Presentation: The Crisis of Our Democracy. Progressive Forum 2007. Oct. 4, 2007. CSU Sacramento
We gather at a very interesting time.
We are witnessing the apparent collapse of the conservative agenda which has dominated U.S. and often California politics for the last two decades. We are witnesses to the exhaustion of Imperialism in Iraq.
A question for us:
What can we do, what can we create to move a progressive agenda.
The U.S. is one of the most capitalist nations in the world. And, we have the highest level of child poverty of modern nations. And, we are the only modern industrialized nation without a system of health care for all.
My argument is to include a Progressive Economic Agenda within the struggles of the various anti war and political movments.
There are a number of issues for a Progressive Agenda. ( handout)
In the 2: 40 PM session we will hear about health care.
Until we get our democracy back, we will be unable to improve our schools.
I am going to focus on creating a decent public education system.
Currently we have a crisis in some of our schools. K-12.
Quality public education for all is a cause well worth fighting for. We have inherited our present schools from the efforts of prior generations to provide all children with the preparation needed for economic opportunity and active citizenship.
Critics of public education repeat and repeat a message of school crisis. And there is a crisis, but some of our schools are working quite well. More and more of our citizens are completing high school and college than ever before. The percentage of high school graduates completing a core academic curriculum – including four years of English and three years each of math, science and social studies – grew from 14 percent to 57 percent from 1982 to 2000. And, many students in high schools are completing for advanced math and science courses.
The percentage of high school graduates completing advanced math courses climbed from 26 percent in 1982 to 45 percent in 2000. A similar growth has occurred in the sciences. (CEP, 2005, The Condition of Education, 2004.NCES)
Schools are working reasonably well for the middle class and many schools serving the poor and ethnic minorities are in crisis (Kozol,2005). Most urban schools, and some rural schools, as currently organized and funded, are not able to offer an education which will overcome the problems of poverty in our society.
Students in low income areas often have fewer qualified teachers, fewer counselors, inadequate textbooks and teaching materials. Although teaching conditions vary from state to state and district to district, the drop out rates are high and the college attendance rates are low for African American and Latino students. With only a few exceptions, these conditions have remained the same for over thirty years.
We have a crisis in some schools- not all- and it is precisely these low income schools where there are the most openings for new teachers. Lets look into this crisis.
Inadequate funding is a major issue in the school crisis in low incom areas. Governments spent $426.6 billion on public education k-12 in 2005. The problem of funding is well illustrated in the following case from California:
Governors, Senators, and Assemblymembers , and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction have given many speeches, but as of last year they had not provided more funds for the schools. This makes for large class sizes. The results of their budget decisions are in.
The NAEP Reading Scores for California give an average score of 209; we rank right along with Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia.
The NAEP results are important because schools and teachers can drill for the state tests, but NAEP measures against a national standard of whether children can actually read (NAEP, 2007). California has remained with these poverty stricken states for the last 12 years. Remember when the ideologues all claimed that by switching to phonics reading scores were going to go up? Or, others claimed that by eliminating bilingual education would produce dramatic gains. Well- where is the data?
Scores are similarly shameful for 8th. Graders with even Alabama out scoring California.
So, what do you do if you are an elected official, responsible for providing adequate resources but failing to do so? Well, you change the subject. You talk about state tests, where teaching to the test is possible, and the “achievement gap”. Stressing the achievement gap –which is real- places the responsibility and the blame on teachers and parents and shifts the focus away from the resource gap created by inadequate budgets.
This year new money began to be sent to low performing schools. It will take several years of consistently improved funding to overcome the reading deficits imposed upon our children in the last decade.
On the national level, the reading scores are essentially stable for the last decade. That is, there was no progress produced by No Child Left Behind. (perhaps because in part it was under funded by 52 Billion). You have to read the scores carefully since the U.S. Dept. of Education has become skilled at the process of claiming great progress for a one or two point gain. But, compare the scores over the last ten years and you will find very little change.
Duane Campbell
We gather at a very interesting time.
We are witnessing the apparent collapse of the conservative agenda which has dominated U.S. and often California politics for the last two decades. We are witnesses to the exhaustion of Imperialism in Iraq.
A question for us:
What can we do, what can we create to move a progressive agenda.
The U.S. is one of the most capitalist nations in the world. And, we have the highest level of child poverty of modern nations. And, we are the only modern industrialized nation without a system of health care for all.
My argument is to include a Progressive Economic Agenda within the struggles of the various anti war and political movments.
There are a number of issues for a Progressive Agenda. ( handout)
In the 2: 40 PM session we will hear about health care.
Until we get our democracy back, we will be unable to improve our schools.
I am going to focus on creating a decent public education system.
Currently we have a crisis in some of our schools. K-12.
Quality public education for all is a cause well worth fighting for. We have inherited our present schools from the efforts of prior generations to provide all children with the preparation needed for economic opportunity and active citizenship.
Critics of public education repeat and repeat a message of school crisis. And there is a crisis, but some of our schools are working quite well. More and more of our citizens are completing high school and college than ever before. The percentage of high school graduates completing a core academic curriculum – including four years of English and three years each of math, science and social studies – grew from 14 percent to 57 percent from 1982 to 2000. And, many students in high schools are completing for advanced math and science courses.
The percentage of high school graduates completing advanced math courses climbed from 26 percent in 1982 to 45 percent in 2000. A similar growth has occurred in the sciences. (CEP, 2005, The Condition of Education, 2004.NCES)
Schools are working reasonably well for the middle class and many schools serving the poor and ethnic minorities are in crisis (Kozol,2005). Most urban schools, and some rural schools, as currently organized and funded, are not able to offer an education which will overcome the problems of poverty in our society.
Students in low income areas often have fewer qualified teachers, fewer counselors, inadequate textbooks and teaching materials. Although teaching conditions vary from state to state and district to district, the drop out rates are high and the college attendance rates are low for African American and Latino students. With only a few exceptions, these conditions have remained the same for over thirty years.
We have a crisis in some schools- not all- and it is precisely these low income schools where there are the most openings for new teachers. Lets look into this crisis.
Inadequate funding is a major issue in the school crisis in low incom areas. Governments spent $426.6 billion on public education k-12 in 2005. The problem of funding is well illustrated in the following case from California:
Governors, Senators, and Assemblymembers , and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction have given many speeches, but as of last year they had not provided more funds for the schools. This makes for large class sizes. The results of their budget decisions are in.
The NAEP Reading Scores for California give an average score of 209; we rank right along with Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia.
The NAEP results are important because schools and teachers can drill for the state tests, but NAEP measures against a national standard of whether children can actually read (NAEP, 2007). California has remained with these poverty stricken states for the last 12 years. Remember when the ideologues all claimed that by switching to phonics reading scores were going to go up? Or, others claimed that by eliminating bilingual education would produce dramatic gains. Well- where is the data?
Scores are similarly shameful for 8th. Graders with even Alabama out scoring California.
So, what do you do if you are an elected official, responsible for providing adequate resources but failing to do so? Well, you change the subject. You talk about state tests, where teaching to the test is possible, and the “achievement gap”. Stressing the achievement gap –which is real- places the responsibility and the blame on teachers and parents and shifts the focus away from the resource gap created by inadequate budgets.
This year new money began to be sent to low performing schools. It will take several years of consistently improved funding to overcome the reading deficits imposed upon our children in the last decade.
On the national level, the reading scores are essentially stable for the last decade. That is, there was no progress produced by No Child Left Behind. (perhaps because in part it was under funded by 52 Billion). You have to read the scores carefully since the U.S. Dept. of Education has become skilled at the process of claiming great progress for a one or two point gain. But, compare the scores over the last ten years and you will find very little change.
Duane Campbell
Friday, October 05, 2007
Clarence Thomas and Rupert Murdoch
Clarence Thomas and Rupert Murdoch
Jon Wiener
The long-awaited publication of Clarence Thomas's memoir, "My Grandfather's Son," out Monday, makes you wonder: how come none of the presidential candidates have said a word about the Supreme Court in any of their debates? Three sitting justices are expected to resign in the next four years--and they're all on the liberal side: John Paul Stevens, David Souter, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The publication facts behind Thomas's book ought to be discussed by all the candidates: he received an advance of $1.5 million in 2003 from HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. If you thought the Court dealt with any issues of relevance to Murdoch, you might call it a conflict of interest for Thomas to accept that payment--far more than any sitting justice ever received from any single source. At least you might mention the fabled "appearance of impropriety." You might call the $1.5 million a thank-you gift from Murdoch for services rendered. You might even wonder if it might be a subtle suggestion to other justices who will be ruling on Murdoch-related issues in the future.
Of course Thomas could avoid that "appearance of impropriety" by recusing himself for the rest of his career from any case raising issues concerning Murdoch, Fox, the First Amendment, copyright law, libel, or any other issues in media or communications law. That would give him a lot of time off.
Yes, it was the first President Bush who nominated Clarence Thomas to succeed civil rights legend Thurgood Marshall - but it was Democrats in the Senate who put him on the court. The teeth-gnashing facts about Clarence Thomas's confirmation can be found in the new book by Washington Post reporters Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher, "Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas." The vote in the Senate on Thomas was 52-48 - the smallest margin for any justice in more than a century. A shift of three votes would have kept Thomas off the court.
Here's the horrible part: at least four senators who voted for Thomas came to regret their vote within a year or two. Merida and Fletcher report that the senators who changed their mind about Thomas after voting for him include David Boren, Democrat of Oklahoma; John Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana; Fritz Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina, and Warren Rudman, Republican of New Hampshire.
Even some of Thomas's most avid defenders stopped saying he told the truth about Anita Hill; Orrin Hatch told Merida and Fletcher that, even if Anita Hill told the truth, what she said about Thomas sexually harassing her wasn't really all that bad.
As for Thomas's memoir, it's a long howl of outrage against the liberals who opposed his confirmation 16 years ago. The book was treated by HarperCollins as if it were the next Harry Potter - "embargoed" until Oct. 1, the first day of the Supreme Court's fall term -- a total clampdown that made it impossible for anyone to buy the book until Monday morning. I tried to buy it at my local Barnes and Noble Sunday night at 10 pm, and was told by a nervous manager that if they sold it to me even two hours before the "embargo" ended, "the publisher would see it on the computer and we'd be fined."
Yet somehow Rush Limbaugh managed to get hold of a copy - Thomas appeared on his show for a full ninety minutes Monday morning. (Maybe the fact that Thomas presided at Rush's wedding was a factor here - an unprecedented act for a sitting Justice.) Murdoch's Fox News was next in line, with a Sean Hannity interview Tuesday.
On the other hand, Nina Totenberg, NPR's Supreme Court reporter, who broke the sexual harassment story during Thomas's confirmation hearing back in 1991, did a piece on the book on Saturday. She's one of Thomas's nemeses; somebody will definitely be in trouble for the fact that she beat the embargo.
the Nation.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has a new book out giving his views on his rise to power. As judged by his interview on 60 Minutes, it is well worth reading. Above all, he accuses feminism and abortion rights advocates concerned with Roe V. Wade with promoting the attack on him by Anita Hill. He claims to be just an honest conservative acting upon the law as provided in the Constitution.
It is a good story. However, what about the presidential election of 2000, the critical Florida balloting was seriously marred by tactics which kept over 200,000 African Americans from voting? (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, June 8, 2001)
For Clarence Thomas to make his case as a victim of racism, you have to accept his claim that there was a conspiracy against him because he was independent and Black. Well, no. There was efforts against him because well informed people assumed that he would vote to establish conservative power – such as the tainted election of a president in 2000- without respect for democracy or the constitution. We should not forget this action by Clarence Thomas – and four other justices- which gave us George Bush as President and all that has followed it.
Duane Campbell
Jon Wiener
The long-awaited publication of Clarence Thomas's memoir, "My Grandfather's Son," out Monday, makes you wonder: how come none of the presidential candidates have said a word about the Supreme Court in any of their debates? Three sitting justices are expected to resign in the next four years--and they're all on the liberal side: John Paul Stevens, David Souter, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The publication facts behind Thomas's book ought to be discussed by all the candidates: he received an advance of $1.5 million in 2003 from HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. If you thought the Court dealt with any issues of relevance to Murdoch, you might call it a conflict of interest for Thomas to accept that payment--far more than any sitting justice ever received from any single source. At least you might mention the fabled "appearance of impropriety." You might call the $1.5 million a thank-you gift from Murdoch for services rendered. You might even wonder if it might be a subtle suggestion to other justices who will be ruling on Murdoch-related issues in the future.
Of course Thomas could avoid that "appearance of impropriety" by recusing himself for the rest of his career from any case raising issues concerning Murdoch, Fox, the First Amendment, copyright law, libel, or any other issues in media or communications law. That would give him a lot of time off.
Yes, it was the first President Bush who nominated Clarence Thomas to succeed civil rights legend Thurgood Marshall - but it was Democrats in the Senate who put him on the court. The teeth-gnashing facts about Clarence Thomas's confirmation can be found in the new book by Washington Post reporters Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher, "Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas." The vote in the Senate on Thomas was 52-48 - the smallest margin for any justice in more than a century. A shift of three votes would have kept Thomas off the court.
Here's the horrible part: at least four senators who voted for Thomas came to regret their vote within a year or two. Merida and Fletcher report that the senators who changed their mind about Thomas after voting for him include David Boren, Democrat of Oklahoma; John Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana; Fritz Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina, and Warren Rudman, Republican of New Hampshire.
Even some of Thomas's most avid defenders stopped saying he told the truth about Anita Hill; Orrin Hatch told Merida and Fletcher that, even if Anita Hill told the truth, what she said about Thomas sexually harassing her wasn't really all that bad.
As for Thomas's memoir, it's a long howl of outrage against the liberals who opposed his confirmation 16 years ago. The book was treated by HarperCollins as if it were the next Harry Potter - "embargoed" until Oct. 1, the first day of the Supreme Court's fall term -- a total clampdown that made it impossible for anyone to buy the book until Monday morning. I tried to buy it at my local Barnes and Noble Sunday night at 10 pm, and was told by a nervous manager that if they sold it to me even two hours before the "embargo" ended, "the publisher would see it on the computer and we'd be fined."
Yet somehow Rush Limbaugh managed to get hold of a copy - Thomas appeared on his show for a full ninety minutes Monday morning. (Maybe the fact that Thomas presided at Rush's wedding was a factor here - an unprecedented act for a sitting Justice.) Murdoch's Fox News was next in line, with a Sean Hannity interview Tuesday.
On the other hand, Nina Totenberg, NPR's Supreme Court reporter, who broke the sexual harassment story during Thomas's confirmation hearing back in 1991, did a piece on the book on Saturday. She's one of Thomas's nemeses; somebody will definitely be in trouble for the fact that she beat the embargo.
the Nation.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has a new book out giving his views on his rise to power. As judged by his interview on 60 Minutes, it is well worth reading. Above all, he accuses feminism and abortion rights advocates concerned with Roe V. Wade with promoting the attack on him by Anita Hill. He claims to be just an honest conservative acting upon the law as provided in the Constitution.
It is a good story. However, what about the presidential election of 2000, the critical Florida balloting was seriously marred by tactics which kept over 200,000 African Americans from voting? (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, June 8, 2001)
For Clarence Thomas to make his case as a victim of racism, you have to accept his claim that there was a conspiracy against him because he was independent and Black. Well, no. There was efforts against him because well informed people assumed that he would vote to establish conservative power – such as the tainted election of a president in 2000- without respect for democracy or the constitution. We should not forget this action by Clarence Thomas – and four other justices- which gave us George Bush as President and all that has followed it.
Duane Campbell
Neo cons turn against NCLB
Here's a new article by two former NCLB supporters, Frederick M. Hess and Chester E. Finn, Jr., "Can This Law Be Fixed? A Hard Look at the No Child Left Behind Remedies" --
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26716,filter.all/pub_detail.asp
The authors continue to place great (and, in my view, unwarranted) confidence in "standards-based reform." But, to their credit, Hess and Finn are open to rethinking their pro-NCLB position on the basis of real-world evidence, which foreshadows the chaos likely to ensue without fundamental changes in the law. If only the so-called "civil rights" groups were willing to do that, the politics of reauthorization would look quite different.
Here are Hess and Finn's concluding paragraphs:
"A Looming Wreck?
"NCLB began with the noble yet naïve promise that every American student will attain proficiency in reading and math by 2014. While there is no doubt that the percentage of proficient students can and should increase dramatically from today's approximately 30 percent level, no educator believes that universal proficiency in seven years is a serious goal; only politicians promise such things. The inevitable result is cynicism among educators and a compliance mentality among public officials.
And, an opinion piece by Diane Ravitch.
Get Congress Out of the Classroom
New York Times Op. Ed. Column -- October 3, 2007 by Diane Ravitch
Despite the rosy claims of the Bush administration, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 is fundamentally flawed. The latest national tests, released last week, show that academic gains since 2003 have been modest, less even than those posted in the years before the law was put in place. In eighth-grade reading, there have been no gains at all since 1998.
The main goal of the law — that all children in the United States will be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 — is simply unattainable. The primary strategy — to test all children in those subjects in grades three through eight every year — has unleashed an unhealthy obsession with standardized testing that has reduced the time available for teaching other important subjects. Furthermore, the law completely fractures the traditional limits on federal interference in the operation of local schools.
I did find them interesting.
This is not about supporting Chester Finn nor Diane Ravitch.
Note what the say. Finn says NCLB is a "civil rights manifesto", it threatens hard won accountability gains - so it should be amended.
Ravitch apparently wants a better test, a single nation wide test. She is not opposed to the current over testing, just stop those states from being too easy in their own testing.
The Forum for Education and Accountability offers a better response: the "NCLB's rigid, mechanistic, sanctions-based approach is doing more harm than good. The modest changes in the House Education Committee's discussion draft and those apparently under consideration in the Senate HELP Committee will not solve the problems. Minor tinkering won't fix the law's reliance on high-stakes testing, unrealistic achievement targets, and punitive mandates.
This brand of accountability sets up a majority of American schools for failure. Repeated studies have shown that most schools in most states will not make AYP (see link to report, below). Over the next few years, the result will be to weaken public support for public education. It could pave the way for privatization schemes that will leave increasing numbers of children behind. More generally, the chaos created by NCLB will intensify voters' cynicism about the federal government's ability to play a constructive or even competent role in social policy."
So, for me no cheers that Finn and Ravitch have taken a critical stand. They want to be consulted as insiders to write a more rigid accountability stand.
This reminds me of Ravitch's pernicious role in California. She was one of three who wrote the History /Social Science Framework in 1987, and currently in use. She defined what multiculturalism is, a neo con version, very Euro centric.
That is what these three are doing here. They are joining the chorus in opposition to NCLB in order to be selected to sit on the panels to draft a new bill or new language.
Duane Campbell
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26716,filter.all/pub_detail.asp
The authors continue to place great (and, in my view, unwarranted) confidence in "standards-based reform." But, to their credit, Hess and Finn are open to rethinking their pro-NCLB position on the basis of real-world evidence, which foreshadows the chaos likely to ensue without fundamental changes in the law. If only the so-called "civil rights" groups were willing to do that, the politics of reauthorization would look quite different.
Here are Hess and Finn's concluding paragraphs:
"A Looming Wreck?
"NCLB began with the noble yet naïve promise that every American student will attain proficiency in reading and math by 2014. While there is no doubt that the percentage of proficient students can and should increase dramatically from today's approximately 30 percent level, no educator believes that universal proficiency in seven years is a serious goal; only politicians promise such things. The inevitable result is cynicism among educators and a compliance mentality among public officials.
And, an opinion piece by Diane Ravitch.
Get Congress Out of the Classroom
New York Times Op. Ed. Column -- October 3, 2007 by Diane Ravitch
Despite the rosy claims of the Bush administration, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 is fundamentally flawed. The latest national tests, released last week, show that academic gains since 2003 have been modest, less even than those posted in the years before the law was put in place. In eighth-grade reading, there have been no gains at all since 1998.
The main goal of the law — that all children in the United States will be proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014 — is simply unattainable. The primary strategy — to test all children in those subjects in grades three through eight every year — has unleashed an unhealthy obsession with standardized testing that has reduced the time available for teaching other important subjects. Furthermore, the law completely fractures the traditional limits on federal interference in the operation of local schools.
I did find them interesting.
This is not about supporting Chester Finn nor Diane Ravitch.
Note what the say. Finn says NCLB is a "civil rights manifesto", it threatens hard won accountability gains - so it should be amended.
Ravitch apparently wants a better test, a single nation wide test. She is not opposed to the current over testing, just stop those states from being too easy in their own testing.
The Forum for Education and Accountability offers a better response: the "NCLB's rigid, mechanistic, sanctions-based approach is doing more harm than good. The modest changes in the House Education Committee's discussion draft and those apparently under consideration in the Senate HELP Committee will not solve the problems. Minor tinkering won't fix the law's reliance on high-stakes testing, unrealistic achievement targets, and punitive mandates.
This brand of accountability sets up a majority of American schools for failure. Repeated studies have shown that most schools in most states will not make AYP (see link to report, below). Over the next few years, the result will be to weaken public support for public education. It could pave the way for privatization schemes that will leave increasing numbers of children behind. More generally, the chaos created by NCLB will intensify voters' cynicism about the federal government's ability to play a constructive or even competent role in social policy."
So, for me no cheers that Finn and Ravitch have taken a critical stand. They want to be consulted as insiders to write a more rigid accountability stand.
This reminds me of Ravitch's pernicious role in California. She was one of three who wrote the History /Social Science Framework in 1987, and currently in use. She defined what multiculturalism is, a neo con version, very Euro centric.
That is what these three are doing here. They are joining the chorus in opposition to NCLB in order to be selected to sit on the panels to draft a new bill or new language.
Duane Campbell
Thursday, October 04, 2007
NCLB: A bad fix
Of all the things we expected Congress to fix when reauthorizing NCLB, the over-reliance upon standardized tests to measure both student learning and school success was first on the list. Maybe taking seriously the federal government’s historic and proper role in insuring equal educational opportunity for all our children was too much to ask. (See the previous edition of this newsletter for our hopes on that agenda). But given the overwhelming evidence of how the testing craze was dumbing down curricula, narrowing teaching and limiting the educational experience of our most school-dependent children, fixing this part of the law seemed obvious.
But the obvious has seemed to escape our representatives, so time for some more editing on the incomplete drafts of NCLB reauthorization we have seen so far.
There is an abundance of evidence of the harm that the NCLB-mandated regime of tests to be taken at least seven times by every child in America’s schools. Reports from the Center for Educational Policy , the Council for Basic Education, and even the usually administration-friendly Fordham Foundation illuminate what is going on. We have outlined these concerns in an earlier post. Unfortunately, while these and other reports have diagnosed the disease, the cure they often suggest—more testing in other areas, just spreads the illness around.
If you have any doubt that the press for more and more tests is hurting not helping schools, a front-line exposé leaves no doubt of what is going on. If you have not yet picked up a copy of Tested by Linda Perlstein get to your bookstore and order it now. And when you are done with it, march straight to your congressperson or senator’s office and insist they read it before voting to reauthorize NCLB. Perlstein spends over a year in a school struggling to make AYP, and they do. But the cost in terms of the school experience for both children and their teachers makes it clear the battle is not worth it. Perlstein pulls no punches, both pointing out that some teachers like the new packaged reading programs they use to jack up test scores because “now I don’t have to think” and chiding parents who send kids to school lacking sleep and supplies. But she saves her most important points for the policy makers that have put in place the test-driven accountability of NCLB.
Following the day to day experiences of real kids and real teachers she shows how the focus on tests is, as one teacher put it, making students “learn the (writing) formula but forget how to think.” Science kits are left unopened in the back of the classroom, engaging chapter books are left unread, school assemblies are only cheerleading efforts for test day, and district specialists plot out ways to have teachers concentrate on the ‘bubble kids’ (the ones who may just inch up their scores enough to pass and make the school look good). All of this in the name of getting more points on the mandated tests so the school meets the federal AYP goals.
It is stories like these that are probably behind the growing public dissatisfaction with NCLB and with our reliance on standardized tests to tell all there is to know about our schools and children. But even when, in the recent reauthorization bill put forth by Congressman Miller, chair of the House Education Sub-Committee, a small experiment allowing non-standardized assessments to be utilized is put forth the usual shouting and name calling begins. In hearings on the Hill so-called student advocate groups called such provisions a roll back on accountability and an abandoning of our commitment to equity.
This too is more of the same when it comes to NCLB. To date there has been no fair and honest discussion of fundamental assumptions that underlie the law and the issues that bedevil it. To wit: What evidence is there that the test scores the law sanctifies actually tell us anything about student success after school? What has been lost in our schools due to the focus on testing? How have we ignored students that are certain to pass or fail tests while schools focus on ‘bubble kids’? Why have perfectly good alternatives to such tests, as used both here and abroad, been attacked by the federal government? And, who benefits (or profits) from the over $570 million to be spent this year on standardized tests by our states—money that could have put almost 16,000 more teachers into classrooms this year?
Unless the reauthorization of NCLB addresses these issues, we will have to continue to return the draft legislation for revision. In the spirit of helping young writers improve on their craft, I want to suggest three resources they could consult in improving their work.
• The Forum has published a research brief on performance-based assessments that illustrates what could be done instead of the current focus on standardized testing.
• Senators Feingold and Leahy have introduced the “Improving Student Testing Act of 2007” which reduces the number of tests given, allows for and funds performance assessments, and holds off the date when all student must be proficient until NCLB is fully funded.
• And The Forum’s original “Guiding Principles for ESEA Reauthorization" presents the changes we feel are necessary.
The Forum remains committed to educational policies that provide for equitable, engaging, and community centered educational opportunities for every child. As federal policy, NCLB fails on all of these counts. It is time that was admitted and a serious discussion of how to support our public schools is undertaken. As Perlstein puts it: “An honest airing (about where the accountability movement is taking our schools) would acknowledge how little the test tells us about students, and it would address the failure of accountability rules to do anything about some of the root causes of poor performance in schools: lack of preschool, lack of medical care, poor parent education, impoverished communities.”
Given the unwillingness of those inside the beltway to take on this discussion, it is unlikely that NCLB will be restructured in ways that will help every child learn or every teacher teach. It is time for something new.
From: The forum on education and democracy.
Call your Congressperson today. Write a letter tonight.
Duane Campbell
__._,_.___
But the obvious has seemed to escape our representatives, so time for some more editing on the incomplete drafts of NCLB reauthorization we have seen so far.
There is an abundance of evidence of the harm that the NCLB-mandated regime of tests to be taken at least seven times by every child in America’s schools. Reports from the Center for Educational Policy , the Council for Basic Education, and even the usually administration-friendly Fordham Foundation illuminate what is going on. We have outlined these concerns in an earlier post. Unfortunately, while these and other reports have diagnosed the disease, the cure they often suggest—more testing in other areas, just spreads the illness around.
If you have any doubt that the press for more and more tests is hurting not helping schools, a front-line exposé leaves no doubt of what is going on. If you have not yet picked up a copy of Tested by Linda Perlstein get to your bookstore and order it now. And when you are done with it, march straight to your congressperson or senator’s office and insist they read it before voting to reauthorize NCLB. Perlstein spends over a year in a school struggling to make AYP, and they do. But the cost in terms of the school experience for both children and their teachers makes it clear the battle is not worth it. Perlstein pulls no punches, both pointing out that some teachers like the new packaged reading programs they use to jack up test scores because “now I don’t have to think” and chiding parents who send kids to school lacking sleep and supplies. But she saves her most important points for the policy makers that have put in place the test-driven accountability of NCLB.
Following the day to day experiences of real kids and real teachers she shows how the focus on tests is, as one teacher put it, making students “learn the (writing) formula but forget how to think.” Science kits are left unopened in the back of the classroom, engaging chapter books are left unread, school assemblies are only cheerleading efforts for test day, and district specialists plot out ways to have teachers concentrate on the ‘bubble kids’ (the ones who may just inch up their scores enough to pass and make the school look good). All of this in the name of getting more points on the mandated tests so the school meets the federal AYP goals.
It is stories like these that are probably behind the growing public dissatisfaction with NCLB and with our reliance on standardized tests to tell all there is to know about our schools and children. But even when, in the recent reauthorization bill put forth by Congressman Miller, chair of the House Education Sub-Committee, a small experiment allowing non-standardized assessments to be utilized is put forth the usual shouting and name calling begins. In hearings on the Hill so-called student advocate groups called such provisions a roll back on accountability and an abandoning of our commitment to equity.
This too is more of the same when it comes to NCLB. To date there has been no fair and honest discussion of fundamental assumptions that underlie the law and the issues that bedevil it. To wit: What evidence is there that the test scores the law sanctifies actually tell us anything about student success after school? What has been lost in our schools due to the focus on testing? How have we ignored students that are certain to pass or fail tests while schools focus on ‘bubble kids’? Why have perfectly good alternatives to such tests, as used both here and abroad, been attacked by the federal government? And, who benefits (or profits) from the over $570 million to be spent this year on standardized tests by our states—money that could have put almost 16,000 more teachers into classrooms this year?
Unless the reauthorization of NCLB addresses these issues, we will have to continue to return the draft legislation for revision. In the spirit of helping young writers improve on their craft, I want to suggest three resources they could consult in improving their work.
• The Forum has published a research brief on performance-based assessments that illustrates what could be done instead of the current focus on standardized testing.
• Senators Feingold and Leahy have introduced the “Improving Student Testing Act of 2007” which reduces the number of tests given, allows for and funds performance assessments, and holds off the date when all student must be proficient until NCLB is fully funded.
• And The Forum’s original “Guiding Principles for ESEA Reauthorization" presents the changes we feel are necessary.
The Forum remains committed to educational policies that provide for equitable, engaging, and community centered educational opportunities for every child. As federal policy, NCLB fails on all of these counts. It is time that was admitted and a serious discussion of how to support our public schools is undertaken. As Perlstein puts it: “An honest airing (about where the accountability movement is taking our schools) would acknowledge how little the test tells us about students, and it would address the failure of accountability rules to do anything about some of the root causes of poor performance in schools: lack of preschool, lack of medical care, poor parent education, impoverished communities.”
Given the unwillingness of those inside the beltway to take on this discussion, it is unlikely that NCLB will be restructured in ways that will help every child learn or every teacher teach. It is time for something new.
From: The forum on education and democracy.
Call your Congressperson today. Write a letter tonight.
Duane Campbell
__._,_.___
Monday, October 01, 2007
Crisis in Democracy: October Conference
The Crisis in Our Democracy
You are invited:
Progressive Forum 2007
Orchard Suite. University Union. CSU –Sacramento
Oct.4, 2007. 9 Am – 4 Pm. Free
Join us for a dialogue on current issues facing the progressive movements and their allies in our region. The Progressive Forum seeks to bring together scholars, students, social justice and union activists, and policy makers to nurture a new kind of conversation from within the campus and the social movements. We seek to move beyond the overly fragmented movements each competing with each other to find ways to cooperate and support each other’s work. This forum aims to enhance personal and organizational ties between those engaged in ongoing workplace and community organizing efforts.
Themes for this year include:
Immigration, the War, the Democratic Party, Media and Democracy, Race and Ethnicity in Political Organizing, the Decline of Public Universities, the Crisis in K-12 Education, Working class life and culture, New Struggles for Feminism; the State of Our Unions, Collapsing Health Care System, Student Organizing and more.
Sponsors:
Bilingual/multicultural education. CSU-Sacramento, Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies, Democratic Socialists of America, Sacramento Progressive Alliance, Progressive Student Alliance. Teach Peace Foundation, Labor Studies:
Ethnic Studies Department.
For more information http://www.ProgressiveForum07.blogspot.com
contact Duane Campbell, campd@csus.edu. Parking. Use daily pay lots. Buy a one day pass.
You are invited:
Progressive Forum 2007
Orchard Suite. University Union. CSU –Sacramento
Oct.4, 2007. 9 Am – 4 Pm. Free
Join us for a dialogue on current issues facing the progressive movements and their allies in our region. The Progressive Forum seeks to bring together scholars, students, social justice and union activists, and policy makers to nurture a new kind of conversation from within the campus and the social movements. We seek to move beyond the overly fragmented movements each competing with each other to find ways to cooperate and support each other’s work. This forum aims to enhance personal and organizational ties between those engaged in ongoing workplace and community organizing efforts.
Themes for this year include:
Immigration, the War, the Democratic Party, Media and Democracy, Race and Ethnicity in Political Organizing, the Decline of Public Universities, the Crisis in K-12 Education, Working class life and culture, New Struggles for Feminism; the State of Our Unions, Collapsing Health Care System, Student Organizing and more.
Sponsors:
Bilingual/multicultural education. CSU-Sacramento, Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies, Democratic Socialists of America, Sacramento Progressive Alliance, Progressive Student Alliance. Teach Peace Foundation, Labor Studies:
Ethnic Studies Department.
For more information http://www.ProgressiveForum07.blogspot.com
contact Duane Campbell, campd@csus.edu. Parking. Use daily pay lots. Buy a one day pass.
G.O.P. Electoral Vote Scheme Blows Up – Spreading Egg All Over Faces of Republican Operatives, Shills
Over on the California Progress Report.
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com
G.O.P. Electoral Vote Scheme Blows Up – Spreading Egg All Over Faces of Republican Operatives, Shills
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com
G.O.P. Electoral Vote Scheme Blows Up – Spreading Egg All Over Faces of Republican Operatives, Shills
Friday, September 28, 2007
California reading scores shameful -again.
California reading scores shameful- again: National Scores essentially stagnant.
Governors, Senators, and Assemblymembers , and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction have given many speeches, but as of last year they had not provided more funds for the schools. This makes for large class sizes. The results of their budget decisions are in.
The NAEP Reading Scores for California give an average score of 209; we rank right along with Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia.
The NAEP results are important because schools and teachers can drill for the state tests, but NAEP measures against a national standard of whether children can actually read (NAEP, 2007). California has remained with these poverty stricken states for the last 12 years. Remember when the ideologues all claimed that by switching to phonics reading scores were going to go up? Or, others claimed that by eliminating bilingual education would produce dramatic gains. Well- where is the data?
Scores are similarly shameful for 8th. Graders with even Alabama out scoring California.
So, what do you do if you are an elected official, responsible for providing adequate resources but failing to do so? Well, you change the subject. You talk about state tests, where teaching to the test is possible, and the “achievement gap”. Stressing the achievement gap –which is real- places the responsibility and the blame on teachers and parents and shifts the focus away from the resource gap created by inadequate budgets.
This year new money began to be sent to low performing schools. It will take several years of consistently improved funding to overcome the reading deficits imposed upon our children in the last decade.
On the national level, the reading scores are essentially stable for the last decade. That is, there was no progress produced by No Child Left Behind. (perhaps because in part it was under funded by 52 Billion). You have to read the scores carefully since the U.S. Dept. of Education has become skilled at the process of claiming great progress for a one or two point gain. But, compare the scores over the last ten years and you will find very little change.
National scores on the math exams have improved over the same decades. More to come on that issue.
Duane Campbell
Professor of Education
author: Choosing Democracy: a practical guide to multicultural education. ( 2004)
Governors, Senators, and Assemblymembers , and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction have given many speeches, but as of last year they had not provided more funds for the schools. This makes for large class sizes. The results of their budget decisions are in.
The NAEP Reading Scores for California give an average score of 209; we rank right along with Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia.
The NAEP results are important because schools and teachers can drill for the state tests, but NAEP measures against a national standard of whether children can actually read (NAEP, 2007). California has remained with these poverty stricken states for the last 12 years. Remember when the ideologues all claimed that by switching to phonics reading scores were going to go up? Or, others claimed that by eliminating bilingual education would produce dramatic gains. Well- where is the data?
Scores are similarly shameful for 8th. Graders with even Alabama out scoring California.
So, what do you do if you are an elected official, responsible for providing adequate resources but failing to do so? Well, you change the subject. You talk about state tests, where teaching to the test is possible, and the “achievement gap”. Stressing the achievement gap –which is real- places the responsibility and the blame on teachers and parents and shifts the focus away from the resource gap created by inadequate budgets.
This year new money began to be sent to low performing schools. It will take several years of consistently improved funding to overcome the reading deficits imposed upon our children in the last decade.
On the national level, the reading scores are essentially stable for the last decade. That is, there was no progress produced by No Child Left Behind. (perhaps because in part it was under funded by 52 Billion). You have to read the scores carefully since the U.S. Dept. of Education has become skilled at the process of claiming great progress for a one or two point gain. But, compare the scores over the last ten years and you will find very little change.
National scores on the math exams have improved over the same decades. More to come on that issue.
Duane Campbell
Professor of Education
author: Choosing Democracy: a practical guide to multicultural education. ( 2004)
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Obama opens Calif. Campaign office
Obama to open Oakland office while Hillary’s here
Posted by Josh Richman on September 26th, 2007
Democratic presidential candiate Barack Obama is about to open his first regional campaign office outside the four early primary states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina) on Sunday right here in Oakland — two blocks from where Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is scheduled to stage a big rally a few hours later. No, he won’t be here himself.
It hadn’t been lost on journalists or political observers that the Obama operation in California thus far has been almost exclusively grassroots; there’ve been some trainings and events, but not much in the way of professional staff or offices.
Former gubernatorial candidate and state Controller Steve Westly told me today that Oakland was chosen for the office because the junior Senator from Illinois enjoys a broad base of support in the Bay Area and Northern California — remember the 10,000 to 12,000 who turned out for his March 17 rally in Oakland? — and expects that widespread backing by minority and young voters will carry him to victory in the Golden State. Oakland represents the kind of ethnically, socio-economically and otherwise diverse audience to which Obama appeals, Westly added, and efforts have been underway for weeks to secure a location; it turned out to be 436 14th Street, not far from Frank Ogawa Plaza.
But Westly wouldn’t comment on whether it’s coincidence that the office will open at 1 p.m. Sunday, three and a half hours before Clinton’s “Club44 Block Party” is to begin on Clay Street between 12th and 14th streets. “Who knows?” he said.
The Obama campaign also today announced an expanded California staff, including communications director Debbie Mesloh; she’ll be on leave from her post as communications director for San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, herself an avowed Obama supporter. Mesloh previously worked as Northern California Field Director for U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and as press secretary for the Atlanta City Council.
Other hires include:
deputy campaign director and political director Vincent Harris, who’ll be on leave from his post as chief of staff to state Senator and Legislative Black Caucus Chairman-elect Mark Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles. Harris earlier worked as deputy chief of staff to Gov. Gray Davis and as senior policy advisor to the late Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald; he has managed field operations as a regional coordinator in the Democratic Coordinated Campaigns in 1998 and 1990 and as campaign manager for congressional and city council elections in 1996 and 1992, respectively.
field operations director Buffy Wicks, who most recently was political director for the UFCW’s WakeUpWalMart.com campaign. A California native, she has also worked as an organizer for the Howard Dean campaign and for the antiwar movement.
deputy political director and director of Asian/Pacific Islander outreach Van Tamom, who most recently was deputy director of public relations at the Los Angeles-based public relations firm Bomaye and was the 2006 Democratic nominee for the 60th California Assembly District.
Latino outreach director Edith Ramirez, on leave as a litigation partner in the law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, LLP; she’s also vice president of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Board of Commissioners.
Filed under Elections, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton. You can follow any comments on this post through the RSS feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
Posted by Josh Richman on September 26th, 2007
Democratic presidential candiate Barack Obama is about to open his first regional campaign office outside the four early primary states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina) on Sunday right here in Oakland — two blocks from where Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is scheduled to stage a big rally a few hours later. No, he won’t be here himself.
It hadn’t been lost on journalists or political observers that the Obama operation in California thus far has been almost exclusively grassroots; there’ve been some trainings and events, but not much in the way of professional staff or offices.
Former gubernatorial candidate and state Controller Steve Westly told me today that Oakland was chosen for the office because the junior Senator from Illinois enjoys a broad base of support in the Bay Area and Northern California — remember the 10,000 to 12,000 who turned out for his March 17 rally in Oakland? — and expects that widespread backing by minority and young voters will carry him to victory in the Golden State. Oakland represents the kind of ethnically, socio-economically and otherwise diverse audience to which Obama appeals, Westly added, and efforts have been underway for weeks to secure a location; it turned out to be 436 14th Street, not far from Frank Ogawa Plaza.
But Westly wouldn’t comment on whether it’s coincidence that the office will open at 1 p.m. Sunday, three and a half hours before Clinton’s “Club44 Block Party” is to begin on Clay Street between 12th and 14th streets. “Who knows?” he said.
The Obama campaign also today announced an expanded California staff, including communications director Debbie Mesloh; she’ll be on leave from her post as communications director for San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, herself an avowed Obama supporter. Mesloh previously worked as Northern California Field Director for U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and as press secretary for the Atlanta City Council.
Other hires include:
deputy campaign director and political director Vincent Harris, who’ll be on leave from his post as chief of staff to state Senator and Legislative Black Caucus Chairman-elect Mark Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles. Harris earlier worked as deputy chief of staff to Gov. Gray Davis and as senior policy advisor to the late Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald; he has managed field operations as a regional coordinator in the Democratic Coordinated Campaigns in 1998 and 1990 and as campaign manager for congressional and city council elections in 1996 and 1992, respectively.
field operations director Buffy Wicks, who most recently was political director for the UFCW’s WakeUpWalMart.com campaign. A California native, she has also worked as an organizer for the Howard Dean campaign and for the antiwar movement.
deputy political director and director of Asian/Pacific Islander outreach Van Tamom, who most recently was deputy director of public relations at the Los Angeles-based public relations firm Bomaye and was the 2006 Democratic nominee for the 60th California Assembly District.
Latino outreach director Edith Ramirez, on leave as a litigation partner in the law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, LLP; she’s also vice president of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Board of Commissioners.
Filed under Elections, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton. You can follow any comments on this post through the RSS feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
NAEP results: not definitive
The 2007 NAEP results are presently available on line. They are not yet available in print. As per past years, the Bush administration is making claims about the scores which are not supported by the evidence.
Here's a more intelligent article on the NAEP results than I've seen elsewhere. It brings out most of the important points, in my view. To wit:
1. The recent gains are quite modest, especially when it comes to closing "achievement gaps."
2. The upward trends in math and in 4th grade reading started well before NCLB took effect and appear to have leveled off a bit since that time.
3. The NAEP data offer no clear conclusions for policy -- it doesn't prove that NCLB is either helping or hurting.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119076129895539227.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Schoolkids Post Modest Gains in National Test
NAEP Scores Are Up Since '05, But Persistent Gaps Fuel Fight Over No Child Left Behind
By JOHN HECHINGER
Wall Street Journal
September 26, 2007; Page D1
Here's a more intelligent article on the NAEP results than I've seen elsewhere. It brings out most of the important points, in my view. To wit:
1. The recent gains are quite modest, especially when it comes to closing "achievement gaps."
2. The upward trends in math and in 4th grade reading started well before NCLB took effect and appear to have leveled off a bit since that time.
3. The NAEP data offer no clear conclusions for policy -- it doesn't prove that NCLB is either helping or hurting.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119076129895539227.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Schoolkids Post Modest Gains in National Test
NAEP Scores Are Up Since '05, But Persistent Gaps Fuel Fight Over No Child Left Behind
By JOHN HECHINGER
Wall Street Journal
September 26, 2007; Page D1
Democrats and Congress fail on NCLB
Of all the things we expected Congress to fix when reauthorizing NCLB, the over-reliance upon standardized tests to measure both student learning and school success was first on the list. Maybe taking seriously the federal government’s historic and proper role in insuring equal educational opportunity for all our children was too much to ask. (See the previous edition of this newsletter for our hopes on that agenda). But given the overwhelming evidence of how the testing craze was dumbing down curricula, narrowing teaching and limiting the educational experience of our most school-dependent children, fixing this part of the law seemed obvious.
But the obvious has seemed to escape our representatives, so time for some more editing on the incomplete drafts of NCLB reauthorization we have seen so far.
There is an abundance of evidence of the harm that the NCLB-mandated regime of tests to be taken at least seven times by every child in America’s schools. Reports from the Center for Educational Policy , the Council for Basic Education, and even the usually administration-friendly Fordham Foundation illuminate what is going on. We have outlined these concerns in an earlier post. Unfortunately, while these and other reports have diagnosed the disease, the cure they often suggest—more testing in other areas, just spreads the illness around.
If you have any doubt that the press for more and more tests is hurting not helping schools, a front-line exposé leaves no doubt of what is going on. If you have not yet picked up a copy of Tested by Linda Perlstein get to your bookstore and order it now. And when you are done with it, march straight to your congressperson or senator’s office and insist they read it before voting to reauthorize NCLB. Perlstein spends over a year in a school struggling to make AYP, and they do. But the cost in terms of the school experience for both children and their teachers makes it clear the battle is not worth it. Perlstein pulls no punches, both pointing out that some teachers like the new packaged reading programs they use to jack up test scores because “now I don’t have to think” and chiding parents who send kids to school lacking sleep and supplies. But she saves her most important points for the policy makers that have put in place the test-driven accountability of NCLB.
Following the day to day experiences of real kids and real teachers she shows how the focus on tests is, as one teacher put it, making students “learn the (writing) formula but forget how to think.” Science kits are left unopened in the back of the classroom, engaging chapter books are left unread, school assemblies are only cheerleading efforts for test day, and district specialists plot out ways to have teachers concentrate on the ‘bubble kids’ (the ones who may just inch up their scores enough to pass and make the school look good). All of this in the name of getting more points on the mandated tests so the school meets the federal AYP goals.
It is stories like these that are probably behind the growing public dissatisfaction with NCLB and with our reliance on standardized tests to tell all there is to know about our schools and children. But even when, in the recent reauthorization bill put forth by Congressman Miller, chair of the House Education Sub-Committee, a small experiment allowing non-standardized assessments to be utilized is put forth the usual shouting and name calling begins. In hearings on the Hill so-called student advocate groups called such provisions a roll back on accountability and an abandoning of our commitment to equity.
This too is more of the same when it comes to NCLB. To date there has been no fair and honest discussion of fundamental assumptions that underlie the law and the issues that bedevil it. To wit: What evidence is there that the test scores the law sanctifies actually tell us anything about student success after school? What has been lost in our schools due to the focus on testing? How have we ignored students that are certain to pass or fail tests while schools focus on ‘bubble kids’? Why have perfectly good alternatives to such tests, as used both here and abroad, been attacked by the federal government? And, who benefits (or profits) from the over $570 million to be spent this year on standardized tests by our states—money that could have put almost 16,000 more teachers into classrooms this year?
Unless the reauthorization of NCLB addresses these issues, we will have to continue to return the draft legislation for revision. In the spirit of helping young writers improve on their craft, I want to suggest three resources they could consult in improving their work.
The Forum has published a research brief on performance-based assessments that illustrates what could be done instead of the current focus on standardized testing.
Senators Feingold and Leahy have introduced the “Improving Student Testing Act of 2007” which reduces the number of tests given, allows for and funds performance assessments, and holds off the date when all student must be proficient until NCLB is fully funded.
And The Forum’s original “Guiding Principles for ESEA Reauthorization" presents the changes we feel are necessary.
The Forum remains committed to educational policies that provide for equitable, engaging, and community centered educational opportunities for every child. As federal policy, NCLB fails on all of these counts. It is time that was admitted and a serious discussion of how to support our public schools is undertaken. As Perlstein puts it: “An honest airing (about where the accountability movement is taking our schools) would acknowledge how little the test tells us about students, and it would address the failure of accountability rules to do anything about some of the root causes of poor performance in schools: lack of preschool, lack of medical care, poor parent education, impoverished communities.”
Given the unwillingness of those inside the beltway to take on this discussion, it is unlikely that NCLB will be restructured in ways that will help every child learn or every teacher teach. It is time for something new.
Forum on education and democracy
But the obvious has seemed to escape our representatives, so time for some more editing on the incomplete drafts of NCLB reauthorization we have seen so far.
There is an abundance of evidence of the harm that the NCLB-mandated regime of tests to be taken at least seven times by every child in America’s schools. Reports from the Center for Educational Policy , the Council for Basic Education, and even the usually administration-friendly Fordham Foundation illuminate what is going on. We have outlined these concerns in an earlier post. Unfortunately, while these and other reports have diagnosed the disease, the cure they often suggest—more testing in other areas, just spreads the illness around.
If you have any doubt that the press for more and more tests is hurting not helping schools, a front-line exposé leaves no doubt of what is going on. If you have not yet picked up a copy of Tested by Linda Perlstein get to your bookstore and order it now. And when you are done with it, march straight to your congressperson or senator’s office and insist they read it before voting to reauthorize NCLB. Perlstein spends over a year in a school struggling to make AYP, and they do. But the cost in terms of the school experience for both children and their teachers makes it clear the battle is not worth it. Perlstein pulls no punches, both pointing out that some teachers like the new packaged reading programs they use to jack up test scores because “now I don’t have to think” and chiding parents who send kids to school lacking sleep and supplies. But she saves her most important points for the policy makers that have put in place the test-driven accountability of NCLB.
Following the day to day experiences of real kids and real teachers she shows how the focus on tests is, as one teacher put it, making students “learn the (writing) formula but forget how to think.” Science kits are left unopened in the back of the classroom, engaging chapter books are left unread, school assemblies are only cheerleading efforts for test day, and district specialists plot out ways to have teachers concentrate on the ‘bubble kids’ (the ones who may just inch up their scores enough to pass and make the school look good). All of this in the name of getting more points on the mandated tests so the school meets the federal AYP goals.
It is stories like these that are probably behind the growing public dissatisfaction with NCLB and with our reliance on standardized tests to tell all there is to know about our schools and children. But even when, in the recent reauthorization bill put forth by Congressman Miller, chair of the House Education Sub-Committee, a small experiment allowing non-standardized assessments to be utilized is put forth the usual shouting and name calling begins. In hearings on the Hill so-called student advocate groups called such provisions a roll back on accountability and an abandoning of our commitment to equity.
This too is more of the same when it comes to NCLB. To date there has been no fair and honest discussion of fundamental assumptions that underlie the law and the issues that bedevil it. To wit: What evidence is there that the test scores the law sanctifies actually tell us anything about student success after school? What has been lost in our schools due to the focus on testing? How have we ignored students that are certain to pass or fail tests while schools focus on ‘bubble kids’? Why have perfectly good alternatives to such tests, as used both here and abroad, been attacked by the federal government? And, who benefits (or profits) from the over $570 million to be spent this year on standardized tests by our states—money that could have put almost 16,000 more teachers into classrooms this year?
Unless the reauthorization of NCLB addresses these issues, we will have to continue to return the draft legislation for revision. In the spirit of helping young writers improve on their craft, I want to suggest three resources they could consult in improving their work.
The Forum has published a research brief on performance-based assessments that illustrates what could be done instead of the current focus on standardized testing.
Senators Feingold and Leahy have introduced the “Improving Student Testing Act of 2007” which reduces the number of tests given, allows for and funds performance assessments, and holds off the date when all student must be proficient until NCLB is fully funded.
And The Forum’s original “Guiding Principles for ESEA Reauthorization" presents the changes we feel are necessary.
The Forum remains committed to educational policies that provide for equitable, engaging, and community centered educational opportunities for every child. As federal policy, NCLB fails on all of these counts. It is time that was admitted and a serious discussion of how to support our public schools is undertaken. As Perlstein puts it: “An honest airing (about where the accountability movement is taking our schools) would acknowledge how little the test tells us about students, and it would address the failure of accountability rules to do anything about some of the root causes of poor performance in schools: lack of preschool, lack of medical care, poor parent education, impoverished communities.”
Given the unwillingness of those inside the beltway to take on this discussion, it is unlikely that NCLB will be restructured in ways that will help every child learn or every teacher teach. It is time for something new.
Forum on education and democracy
NAEP: math scores improve, reading does not
September 26, 2007
Math Scores Rise, but Reading Is Mixed
By SAM DILLON
America’s public school students are doing significantly better in math since the federal No Child Left Behind law took effect in 2002, but gains in reading achievement have been marginal, with performance declining among eighth graders, according to results of nationwide reading and math tests released Tuesday.
The results also showed that the nation had made only incremental progress in narrowing historic gaps in achievement between white and minority students, a fundamental goal of the federal law.
The reading and math tests, known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress and administered by the Department of Education, were last given in 2005, and this year’s results landed in the midst of a fierce political debate over whether to renew the law. They offer ammunition both to the business leaders and other groups who support the law, as well as to teachers unions and groups who say its emphasis on standardized tests hurts schools.
President Bush called the results “outstanding,” adding, “These scores confirm that No Child Left Behind is working.” But critics of the federal law, including an antitesting group and a national teachers union, said many scores were rising faster before the law’s enactment.
The national tests were given to 700,000 fourth- and eighth-grade students in all 50 states this year.
“Overall, we’re doing well, but it’s clear that results are better in math than in reading,” Darvin Winick, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, the bipartisan group set up by Congress to oversee the tests, said in an interview. “Probably the educational establishment needs to look at middle school reading to see why we’re not making progress there.”
The federal law requires states to administer reading and math tests every year in grades three through eight, with the goal of bringing every student to “proficiency” in math and reading by 2014. But the law lets each state write its own tests and define proficiency. The national reading and math assessment is considered a more reliable indicator of performance than the state tests.
The good news came in math. The average math score for fourth graders is at its highest level in 17 years, and the percentage of fourth graders scoring at or above proficiency rose to 39 percent this year, up eight points since the federal law took effect. The latest results also show that eighth-grade students’ math performance has improved, although not as quickly as among younger students.
The reading results were sobering. On average, reading scores for fourth graders have increased modestly since the law took effect, but in about a dozen states the percentage of students who read at the proficiency level has stayed the same or fallen.
Eighth-grade scores have declined slightly, on average, since the law took effect, and in 18 states, including Connecticut, the percentage of students performing at the proficient level in reading has fallen. The biggest declines came in West Virginia, Rhode Island and New Mexico.
“Substantial improvement in reading achievement is still eluding us as a nation,” Amanda P. Avallone, an eighth-grade English teacher from Colorado who sits on the assessment’s governing board, said Tuesday.
The results showed minimal progress in narrowing achievement gaps between white and minority students. On this year’s reading test, for instance, fourth-grade black students scored 27 points below whites on the assessment’s 500-point scale, a slight improvement over 2003, when blacks scored 31 points lower than whites.
Federal officials said each point on the test equates to about a tenth of a school year’s worth of learning. In eighth-grade math, the gaps between white and black and between white and Hispanic students were as intractably wide as in 1990.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who as chairman of the Senate education committee helped the Bush administration pass the law in 2001, called the results “encouraging.”
The American Federation of Teachers congratulated its members for the improvements in math and in fourth-grade reading, but noted that “many scores were rising faster before No Child Left Behind was enacted.” Fair Test, an antitesting group, made a similar comment.
The results showed striking achievement differences among the states since the law was passed. Massachusetts, for instance, has made spectacular progress in math and good progress in reading in fourth and eighth grade. In New Jersey the percentage of fourth and eighth graders showing proficiency in math has risen significantly.
But achievement has stagnated elsewhere. The percentage of eighth-grade students proficient in math in New York declined to 30 percent this year from 32 percent in 2003, for instance.
The state education commissioner, Richard Mills, focused instead on results showing that New York has been more successful than the nation as a whole in raising the achievement of black and Hispanic students.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Privacy Policy
Math Scores Rise, but Reading Is Mixed
By SAM DILLON
America’s public school students are doing significantly better in math since the federal No Child Left Behind law took effect in 2002, but gains in reading achievement have been marginal, with performance declining among eighth graders, according to results of nationwide reading and math tests released Tuesday.
The results also showed that the nation had made only incremental progress in narrowing historic gaps in achievement between white and minority students, a fundamental goal of the federal law.
The reading and math tests, known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress and administered by the Department of Education, were last given in 2005, and this year’s results landed in the midst of a fierce political debate over whether to renew the law. They offer ammunition both to the business leaders and other groups who support the law, as well as to teachers unions and groups who say its emphasis on standardized tests hurts schools.
President Bush called the results “outstanding,” adding, “These scores confirm that No Child Left Behind is working.” But critics of the federal law, including an antitesting group and a national teachers union, said many scores were rising faster before the law’s enactment.
The national tests were given to 700,000 fourth- and eighth-grade students in all 50 states this year.
“Overall, we’re doing well, but it’s clear that results are better in math than in reading,” Darvin Winick, chairman of the National Assessment Governing Board, the bipartisan group set up by Congress to oversee the tests, said in an interview. “Probably the educational establishment needs to look at middle school reading to see why we’re not making progress there.”
The federal law requires states to administer reading and math tests every year in grades three through eight, with the goal of bringing every student to “proficiency” in math and reading by 2014. But the law lets each state write its own tests and define proficiency. The national reading and math assessment is considered a more reliable indicator of performance than the state tests.
The good news came in math. The average math score for fourth graders is at its highest level in 17 years, and the percentage of fourth graders scoring at or above proficiency rose to 39 percent this year, up eight points since the federal law took effect. The latest results also show that eighth-grade students’ math performance has improved, although not as quickly as among younger students.
The reading results were sobering. On average, reading scores for fourth graders have increased modestly since the law took effect, but in about a dozen states the percentage of students who read at the proficiency level has stayed the same or fallen.
Eighth-grade scores have declined slightly, on average, since the law took effect, and in 18 states, including Connecticut, the percentage of students performing at the proficient level in reading has fallen. The biggest declines came in West Virginia, Rhode Island and New Mexico.
“Substantial improvement in reading achievement is still eluding us as a nation,” Amanda P. Avallone, an eighth-grade English teacher from Colorado who sits on the assessment’s governing board, said Tuesday.
The results showed minimal progress in narrowing achievement gaps between white and minority students. On this year’s reading test, for instance, fourth-grade black students scored 27 points below whites on the assessment’s 500-point scale, a slight improvement over 2003, when blacks scored 31 points lower than whites.
Federal officials said each point on the test equates to about a tenth of a school year’s worth of learning. In eighth-grade math, the gaps between white and black and between white and Hispanic students were as intractably wide as in 1990.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who as chairman of the Senate education committee helped the Bush administration pass the law in 2001, called the results “encouraging.”
The American Federation of Teachers congratulated its members for the improvements in math and in fourth-grade reading, but noted that “many scores were rising faster before No Child Left Behind was enacted.” Fair Test, an antitesting group, made a similar comment.
The results showed striking achievement differences among the states since the law was passed. Massachusetts, for instance, has made spectacular progress in math and good progress in reading in fourth and eighth grade. In New Jersey the percentage of fourth and eighth graders showing proficiency in math has risen significantly.
But achievement has stagnated elsewhere. The percentage of eighth-grade students proficient in math in New York declined to 30 percent this year from 32 percent in 2003, for instance.
The state education commissioner, Richard Mills, focused instead on results showing that New York has been more successful than the nation as a whole in raising the achievement of black and Hispanic students.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Privacy Policy
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Juan Cole on Ahmadinejad
Turning Ahmadinejad into public enemy No. 1
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/09/24/ahmadinejad/
Demonizing the Iranian president and making his visit to New York seem controversial are all part of the neoconservative push for yet another war.
By Juan Cole
Sept. 24, 2007 | Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly has become a media circus. But the controversy does not stem from the reasons usually cited.
The media has focused on debating whether he should be allowed to speak at Columbia University on Monday, or whether his request to visit Ground Zero, the site of the Sept. 11 attack in lower Manhattan, should have been honored. His request was rejected, even though Iran expressed sympathy with the United States in the aftermath of those attacks and Iranians held candlelight vigils for the victims. Iran felt that it and other Shiite populations had also suffered at the hands of al-Qaida, and that there might now be an opportunity for a new opening to the United States.
Instead, the U.S. State Department denounced Ahmadinejad as himself little more than a terrorist. Critics have also cited his statements about the Holocaust or his hopes that the Israeli state will collapse. He has been depicted as a Hitler figure intent on killing Israeli Jews, even though he is not commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces, has never invaded any other country, denies he is an anti-Semite, has never called for any Israeli civilians to be killed, and allows Iran's 20,000 Jews to have representation in Parliament.
There is, in fact, remarkably little substance to the debates now raging in the United States about Ahmadinejad. His quirky personality, penchant for outrageous one-liners, and combative populism are hardly serious concerns for foreign policy. Taking potshots at a bantam cock of a populist like Ahmadinejad is actually a way of expressing another, deeper anxiety: fear of Iran's rising position as a regional power and its challenge to the American and Israeli status quo. The real reason his visit is controversial is that the American right has decided the United States needs to go to war against Iran. Ahmadinejad is therefore being configured as an enemy head of state.
The neoconservatives are even claiming that the United States has been at war with Iran since 1979. As Glenn Greenwald points out, this assertion is absurd. In the '80s, the Reagan administration sold substantial numbers of arms to Iran. Some of those beating the war drums most loudly now, like think-tank rat Michael Ledeen, were middlemen in the Reagan administration's unconstitutional weapons sales to Tehran. The sales would have been a form of treason if in fact the United States had been at war with Iran at that time, so Ledeen is apparently accusing himself of treason.
But the right has decided it is at war with Iran, so a routine visit by Iran's ceremonial president to the U.N. General Assembly has generated sparks. The foremost cheerleader for such a view in Congress is Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., who recently pressed Gen. David Petraeus on the desirability of bombing Iran in order to forestall weapons smuggling into Iraq from that country (thus cleverly using one war of choice to foment another).
American hawks are beating the war drums loudly because they are increasingly frustrated with the course of events. They are unsatisfied with the lack of enthusiasm among the Europeans and at the United Nations for impeding Tehran's nuclear energy research program. While the Bush administration insists that the program aims at producing a bomb, the Iranian state maintains that it is for peaceful energy purposes. Washington wants tighter sanctions on Iran at the United Nations but is unlikely to get them in the short term because of Russian and Chinese reluctance. The Bush administration may attempt to create a "coalition of the willing" of Iran boycotters outside the U.N. framework.
Washington is also unhappy with Mohammad ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He has been unable to find credible evidence that Iran has a weapons program, and he told Italian television this week, "Iran does not constitute a certain and immediate threat for the international community." He stressed that no evidence had been found for underground production sites or hidden radioactive substances, and he urged a three-month waiting period before the U.N. Security Council drew negative conclusions.
ElBaradei intervened to call for calm after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said last week that if the negotiations over Iran's nuclear research program were unsuccessful, it could lead to war. Kouchner later clarified that he was not calling for an attack on Iran, but his remarks appear to have been taken seriously in Tehran.
Kouchner made the remarks after there had already been substantial speculation in the U.S. press that impatient hawks around U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney were seeking a pretext for a U.S. attack on Iran. Steven Clemons of the New America Foundation probably correctly concluded in Salon last week that President Bush himself has for now decided against launching a war on Iran. But Clemons worries that Cheney and the neoconservatives, with their Israeli allies, are perfectly capable of setting up a provocation that would lead willy-nilly to war.
David Wurmser, until recently a key Cheney advisor on Middle East affairs and the coauthor of the infamous 1996 white paper that urged an Iraq war, revealed to his circle that Cheney had contemplated having Israel strike at Iranian nuclear research facilities and then using the Iranian reaction as a pretext for a U.S. war on that country. Prominent and well-connected Afghanistan specialist Barnett Rubin also revealed that he was told by an administration insider that there would be an "Iran war rollout" by the Cheneyites this fall.
It should also be stressed that some elements in the U.S. officer corps and the Defense Intelligence Agency are clearly spoiling for a fight with Iran because the Iranian-supported Shiite nationalists in Iraq are a major obstacle to U.S. dominance in Iraq. Although very few U.S. troops in Iraq are killed by Shiites, military spokesmen have been attempting to give the impression that Tehran is ordering hits on U.S. troops, a clear casus belli. Disinformation campaigns that accuse Iran of trying to destabilize the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government -- a government Iran actually supports -- could lay the groundwork for a war. Likewise, with the U.S. military now beginning patrols on the Iran-Iraq border, the possibility is enhanced of a hostile incident spinning out of control.
The Iranians have responded to all this bellicosity with some chest-thumping of their own, right up to the final hours before Ahmadinejad's American visit. The Iranian government declared "National Defense Week" on Saturday, kicking it off with a big military parade that showed off Iran's new Qadr-1 missiles, with a range of 1,100 miles. Before he left Iran for New York on Sunday morning, Ahmadinejad inspected three types of Iranian-manufactured jet fighters, noting that it was the anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980 (which the Iranian press attributed to American urging, though that is unlikely).
The display of this military equipment was accompanied by a raft of assurances on the part of the Iranian ayatollahs, politicians and generals that they were entirely prepared to deploy the missiles and planes if they were attacked. A top military advisor to Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei told the Mehr News Agency on Saturday, "Today, the United States must know that their 200,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are within the reach of Iran's fire. When the Americans were beyond our shores, they were not within our reach, but today it is very easy for us to deal them blows." Khamenei, the actual commander in chief of the armed forces, weighed in as well, reiterating that Iran would never attack first but pledging: "Those who make threats should know that attack on Iran in the form of hit and run will not be possible, and if any country invades Iran it will face its very serious consequences."
The threat to target U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the unveiling of the Qadr-1 were not aggressive in intent, but designed to make the point that Iran could also play by Richard M. Nixon's "madman" strategy, whereby you act so wildly as to convince your enemy you are capable of anything. Ordinarily a poor non-nuclear third-world country might be expected to be supine before an attack by a superpower. But as Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the Iranian deputy speaker of Parliament, warned: "Any military attack against Iran will send the region up in flames."
In the end, this is hardly the kind of conflagration the United States should be enabling. If a spark catches, it will not advance any of America's four interests in the Middle East: petroleum, markets, Israel and hegemony.
The Middle East has two-thirds of the world's proven petroleum reserves and nearly half its natural gas, and its fields are much deeper than elsewhere in the world, so that its importance will grow for the United States and its allies. Petro-dollars and other wealth make the region an important market for U.S. industry, especially the arms industry. Israel is important both for reasons of domestic politics and because it is a proxy for U.S. power in the region. By "hegemony," I mean the desire of Washington to dominate political and economic outcomes in the region and to forestall rivals such as China from making it their sphere of influence.
The Iranian government (in which Ahmadinejad has a weak role, analogous to that of U.S. vice presidents before Dick Cheney) poses a challenge to the U.S. program in the Middle East. Iran is, unlike most Middle Eastern countries, large. It is geographically four times the size of France, and it has a population of 70 million (more than France or the United Kingdom). As an oil state, it has done very well from the high petroleum prices of recent years. It has been negotiating long-term energy deals with China and India, much to the dismay of Washington. It provides financial support to the Palestinians and to the Lebanese Shiites who vote for the Hezbollah Party in Lebanon. By overthrowing the Afghanistan and Iraq governments and throwing both countries into chaos, the United States has inadvertently enabled Iran to emerge as a potential regional power, which could challenge Israel and Saudi Arabia and project both soft and hard power in the strategic Persian Gulf and the Levant.
And now the American war party, undeterred by the quagmire in Iraq, convinced that their model of New Empire is working, is eager to go on the offensive again. They may yet find a pretext to plunge the United States into another war. Ahmadinejad's visit to New York this year will not include his visit to Ground Zero, because that is hallowed ground for American patriotism and he is being depicted as not just a critic of the United States but as the leader of an enemy state. His visit may, however, be ground zero for the next big military struggle of the United States in the Middle East, one that really will make Iraq look like a cakewalk.
__._,_.___
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/09/24/ahmadinejad/
Demonizing the Iranian president and making his visit to New York seem controversial are all part of the neoconservative push for yet another war.
By Juan Cole
Sept. 24, 2007 | Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly has become a media circus. But the controversy does not stem from the reasons usually cited.
The media has focused on debating whether he should be allowed to speak at Columbia University on Monday, or whether his request to visit Ground Zero, the site of the Sept. 11 attack in lower Manhattan, should have been honored. His request was rejected, even though Iran expressed sympathy with the United States in the aftermath of those attacks and Iranians held candlelight vigils for the victims. Iran felt that it and other Shiite populations had also suffered at the hands of al-Qaida, and that there might now be an opportunity for a new opening to the United States.
Instead, the U.S. State Department denounced Ahmadinejad as himself little more than a terrorist. Critics have also cited his statements about the Holocaust or his hopes that the Israeli state will collapse. He has been depicted as a Hitler figure intent on killing Israeli Jews, even though he is not commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces, has never invaded any other country, denies he is an anti-Semite, has never called for any Israeli civilians to be killed, and allows Iran's 20,000 Jews to have representation in Parliament.
There is, in fact, remarkably little substance to the debates now raging in the United States about Ahmadinejad. His quirky personality, penchant for outrageous one-liners, and combative populism are hardly serious concerns for foreign policy. Taking potshots at a bantam cock of a populist like Ahmadinejad is actually a way of expressing another, deeper anxiety: fear of Iran's rising position as a regional power and its challenge to the American and Israeli status quo. The real reason his visit is controversial is that the American right has decided the United States needs to go to war against Iran. Ahmadinejad is therefore being configured as an enemy head of state.
The neoconservatives are even claiming that the United States has been at war with Iran since 1979. As Glenn Greenwald points out, this assertion is absurd. In the '80s, the Reagan administration sold substantial numbers of arms to Iran. Some of those beating the war drums most loudly now, like think-tank rat Michael Ledeen, were middlemen in the Reagan administration's unconstitutional weapons sales to Tehran. The sales would have been a form of treason if in fact the United States had been at war with Iran at that time, so Ledeen is apparently accusing himself of treason.
But the right has decided it is at war with Iran, so a routine visit by Iran's ceremonial president to the U.N. General Assembly has generated sparks. The foremost cheerleader for such a view in Congress is Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., who recently pressed Gen. David Petraeus on the desirability of bombing Iran in order to forestall weapons smuggling into Iraq from that country (thus cleverly using one war of choice to foment another).
American hawks are beating the war drums loudly because they are increasingly frustrated with the course of events. They are unsatisfied with the lack of enthusiasm among the Europeans and at the United Nations for impeding Tehran's nuclear energy research program. While the Bush administration insists that the program aims at producing a bomb, the Iranian state maintains that it is for peaceful energy purposes. Washington wants tighter sanctions on Iran at the United Nations but is unlikely to get them in the short term because of Russian and Chinese reluctance. The Bush administration may attempt to create a "coalition of the willing" of Iran boycotters outside the U.N. framework.
Washington is also unhappy with Mohammad ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He has been unable to find credible evidence that Iran has a weapons program, and he told Italian television this week, "Iran does not constitute a certain and immediate threat for the international community." He stressed that no evidence had been found for underground production sites or hidden radioactive substances, and he urged a three-month waiting period before the U.N. Security Council drew negative conclusions.
ElBaradei intervened to call for calm after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said last week that if the negotiations over Iran's nuclear research program were unsuccessful, it could lead to war. Kouchner later clarified that he was not calling for an attack on Iran, but his remarks appear to have been taken seriously in Tehran.
Kouchner made the remarks after there had already been substantial speculation in the U.S. press that impatient hawks around U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney were seeking a pretext for a U.S. attack on Iran. Steven Clemons of the New America Foundation probably correctly concluded in Salon last week that President Bush himself has for now decided against launching a war on Iran. But Clemons worries that Cheney and the neoconservatives, with their Israeli allies, are perfectly capable of setting up a provocation that would lead willy-nilly to war.
David Wurmser, until recently a key Cheney advisor on Middle East affairs and the coauthor of the infamous 1996 white paper that urged an Iraq war, revealed to his circle that Cheney had contemplated having Israel strike at Iranian nuclear research facilities and then using the Iranian reaction as a pretext for a U.S. war on that country. Prominent and well-connected Afghanistan specialist Barnett Rubin also revealed that he was told by an administration insider that there would be an "Iran war rollout" by the Cheneyites this fall.
It should also be stressed that some elements in the U.S. officer corps and the Defense Intelligence Agency are clearly spoiling for a fight with Iran because the Iranian-supported Shiite nationalists in Iraq are a major obstacle to U.S. dominance in Iraq. Although very few U.S. troops in Iraq are killed by Shiites, military spokesmen have been attempting to give the impression that Tehran is ordering hits on U.S. troops, a clear casus belli. Disinformation campaigns that accuse Iran of trying to destabilize the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government -- a government Iran actually supports -- could lay the groundwork for a war. Likewise, with the U.S. military now beginning patrols on the Iran-Iraq border, the possibility is enhanced of a hostile incident spinning out of control.
The Iranians have responded to all this bellicosity with some chest-thumping of their own, right up to the final hours before Ahmadinejad's American visit. The Iranian government declared "National Defense Week" on Saturday, kicking it off with a big military parade that showed off Iran's new Qadr-1 missiles, with a range of 1,100 miles. Before he left Iran for New York on Sunday morning, Ahmadinejad inspected three types of Iranian-manufactured jet fighters, noting that it was the anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Iran in 1980 (which the Iranian press attributed to American urging, though that is unlikely).
The display of this military equipment was accompanied by a raft of assurances on the part of the Iranian ayatollahs, politicians and generals that they were entirely prepared to deploy the missiles and planes if they were attacked. A top military advisor to Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei told the Mehr News Agency on Saturday, "Today, the United States must know that their 200,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are within the reach of Iran's fire. When the Americans were beyond our shores, they were not within our reach, but today it is very easy for us to deal them blows." Khamenei, the actual commander in chief of the armed forces, weighed in as well, reiterating that Iran would never attack first but pledging: "Those who make threats should know that attack on Iran in the form of hit and run will not be possible, and if any country invades Iran it will face its very serious consequences."
The threat to target U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the unveiling of the Qadr-1 were not aggressive in intent, but designed to make the point that Iran could also play by Richard M. Nixon's "madman" strategy, whereby you act so wildly as to convince your enemy you are capable of anything. Ordinarily a poor non-nuclear third-world country might be expected to be supine before an attack by a superpower. But as Mohammad Reza Bahonar, the Iranian deputy speaker of Parliament, warned: "Any military attack against Iran will send the region up in flames."
In the end, this is hardly the kind of conflagration the United States should be enabling. If a spark catches, it will not advance any of America's four interests in the Middle East: petroleum, markets, Israel and hegemony.
The Middle East has two-thirds of the world's proven petroleum reserves and nearly half its natural gas, and its fields are much deeper than elsewhere in the world, so that its importance will grow for the United States and its allies. Petro-dollars and other wealth make the region an important market for U.S. industry, especially the arms industry. Israel is important both for reasons of domestic politics and because it is a proxy for U.S. power in the region. By "hegemony," I mean the desire of Washington to dominate political and economic outcomes in the region and to forestall rivals such as China from making it their sphere of influence.
The Iranian government (in which Ahmadinejad has a weak role, analogous to that of U.S. vice presidents before Dick Cheney) poses a challenge to the U.S. program in the Middle East. Iran is, unlike most Middle Eastern countries, large. It is geographically four times the size of France, and it has a population of 70 million (more than France or the United Kingdom). As an oil state, it has done very well from the high petroleum prices of recent years. It has been negotiating long-term energy deals with China and India, much to the dismay of Washington. It provides financial support to the Palestinians and to the Lebanese Shiites who vote for the Hezbollah Party in Lebanon. By overthrowing the Afghanistan and Iraq governments and throwing both countries into chaos, the United States has inadvertently enabled Iran to emerge as a potential regional power, which could challenge Israel and Saudi Arabia and project both soft and hard power in the strategic Persian Gulf and the Levant.
And now the American war party, undeterred by the quagmire in Iraq, convinced that their model of New Empire is working, is eager to go on the offensive again. They may yet find a pretext to plunge the United States into another war. Ahmadinejad's visit to New York this year will not include his visit to Ground Zero, because that is hallowed ground for American patriotism and he is being depicted as not just a critic of the United States but as the leader of an enemy state. His visit may, however, be ground zero for the next big military struggle of the United States in the Middle East, one that really will make Iraq look like a cakewalk.
__._,_.___
NCLB approaches a vote
It looks like the vote on the re-authorization of NCLB will be after Oct.8. CTA has mounted a major campaign to stop the bill in its present form. There are many reasons to oppose it, including those of CTA.
Please write to your Congressperson today.
Your Congressperson:
Ie. Doris Matsui,
Congressman George Miller,
Chair, House Committee on Education and Labor,
Dear Congressman Miller,
I have read your statements on NCLB. You are not getting to the heart of the issues.
I write from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party and, I do not accept your present commitment to NCLB. It is a Republican bill, drafted by Republicans, and you are negotiating the margins.
The domination of school reform dialogue by conservative political forces and corporate financed institutes (1983- 2008) produced a shift in discussion of school issues away from equal opportunity and toward analysis of the “achievement gap” the gap in scores between ethnic and economic groups. . The accountability movement stressed increased testing rather than relying upon teacher curriculum decision making. It is noticeable in this debate that the conservative policy advocates did not have their children or grandchildren in low income schools where the curriculum and teaching has too often been reduced to drill and test. Their children are in middle class schools – higher achieving schools- where the curriculum and teaching strategies remain more open, more child friendly, more divergent and where schools pursue multiple goals, not only improved test scores
In political terms this shifted responsibility for children’s educational achievement from the unequal government funding and placed it at the feet of teachers and education professionals while also demonizing teachers’ unions and other education professionals. The accountability and testing movement changed the educational debates away from discussion of democracy and multicultural education toward measuring achievement in math and reading. These shifts were not accidental nor are they politically neutral.
We are in a difficult situation; our students’ futures and the health of our democracy depend upon engaging in the struggle for democratic education. If we want democracy, we must educate for democracy. Democracy depends upon the participation of its members in the political, social, cultural and economic institutions. We do this through public schools. The current federal law, No child left behind (NCLB) and most state school reform plans remove teachers, students and parents from active involvement in decision making about standards, testing, and curriculum, and restricts the decision making of elected school boards.
The fundamental issue is you need to start listening to teachers, not to "educational experts" who make their living by commenting on teachers lives.
In addition. The ultimate sanction against a low performing school is some form of take over or re-constitution. This has been done in many places including Oakland Unified. There is no evidence of improved achievement after a take over.
There are good talking points at www.elladvocates.org and at http://www.cta.org and http://www.nea.org
Please write to your Congressperson today.
Your Congressperson:
Ie. Doris Matsui,
Congressman George Miller,
Chair, House Committee on Education and Labor,
Dear Congressman Miller,
I have read your statements on NCLB. You are not getting to the heart of the issues.
I write from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party and, I do not accept your present commitment to NCLB. It is a Republican bill, drafted by Republicans, and you are negotiating the margins.
The domination of school reform dialogue by conservative political forces and corporate financed institutes (1983- 2008) produced a shift in discussion of school issues away from equal opportunity and toward analysis of the “achievement gap” the gap in scores between ethnic and economic groups. . The accountability movement stressed increased testing rather than relying upon teacher curriculum decision making. It is noticeable in this debate that the conservative policy advocates did not have their children or grandchildren in low income schools where the curriculum and teaching has too often been reduced to drill and test. Their children are in middle class schools – higher achieving schools- where the curriculum and teaching strategies remain more open, more child friendly, more divergent and where schools pursue multiple goals, not only improved test scores
In political terms this shifted responsibility for children’s educational achievement from the unequal government funding and placed it at the feet of teachers and education professionals while also demonizing teachers’ unions and other education professionals. The accountability and testing movement changed the educational debates away from discussion of democracy and multicultural education toward measuring achievement in math and reading. These shifts were not accidental nor are they politically neutral.
We are in a difficult situation; our students’ futures and the health of our democracy depend upon engaging in the struggle for democratic education. If we want democracy, we must educate for democracy. Democracy depends upon the participation of its members in the political, social, cultural and economic institutions. We do this through public schools. The current federal law, No child left behind (NCLB) and most state school reform plans remove teachers, students and parents from active involvement in decision making about standards, testing, and curriculum, and restricts the decision making of elected school boards.
The fundamental issue is you need to start listening to teachers, not to "educational experts" who make their living by commenting on teachers lives.
In addition. The ultimate sanction against a low performing school is some form of take over or re-constitution. This has been done in many places including Oakland Unified. There is no evidence of improved achievement after a take over.
There are good talking points at www.elladvocates.org and at http://www.cta.org and http://www.nea.org
Monday, September 24, 2007
Steal California initiative
Your website and framing on Dirty Tricks is excellent, but this is a plea for message discipline. The California Democratic Party has been fast out of the box and is calling the initiative the "Steal the State" Initiative. That name communicates instantly what the initiative is about. As the CDP is already out there branding the initiative, it would be great if the Courage Campaign would add that name and pound it in, along with the more centrist opposition.
Signature gatherers are collecting signatures on the Sac State campus on the Republican initiative to change the way California distributes the state’s electoral votes.
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/09/california_gops.html
This is anti Democrat initiative. It will give electoral votes to the Republicans and could well determine the 2008 presidential election.
Those gathering signatures are deliberately misrepresenting the initiative as sponsored by the Democratic Party. When I confronted one operative, he seemed confused. He really did not understand the initiative, he was just earning money.
Today, signature gatherers were describing it as reforming the electoral college.
Signature gatherers are collecting signatures on the Sac State campus on the Republican initiative to change the way California distributes the state’s electoral votes.
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/09/california_gops.html
This is anti Democrat initiative. It will give electoral votes to the Republicans and could well determine the 2008 presidential election.
Those gathering signatures are deliberately misrepresenting the initiative as sponsored by the Democratic Party. When I confronted one operative, he seemed confused. He really did not understand the initiative, he was just earning money.
Today, signature gatherers were describing it as reforming the electoral college.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Move on gains from Bush assault: Republican attacks
From a Move on e mail.
Yesterday, an amazing thing happened. After the Senate's shameful vote, and after President Bush called MoveOn "disgusting,"1 our email started to fill up with messages like this one:
I'm currently in Iraq. I do not agree with this war, and if I did support this war, it would not matter. You have the RIGHT to speak the truth. We KNOW that you support us. Thank you for speaking out for being our voice. We do not have a voice. We are overshooted by those who say that we soldiers do not support organizations like MoveOn. WE DO.
YOU ARE OUR voice.
And then came the donations. By midnight, over 12,000 people had donated $500,000—more than we've raised any day this year—for our new ad calling out the Republicans who blocked adequate rest for troops headed back to Iraq.
The message from MoveOn members was loud and clear: Don't back down. Take the fight back to the issues that matter.
So today we're shooting for a very ambitious goal: Reach $1 million so we can dramatically expand the campaign we launched yesterday going after politicians who support this awful war. Can you chip in $10 toward our goal?
https://pol.moveon.org/donate/mcconnell.html?id=11275-2950289-O1n9u2&t=2
All day, messages from vets and military family members kept pouring into our email, many of them aimed at the Senate:
I have given a son to this country. My brother, my father, my uncle have all served honorably and bravely. I am a loyal American. I am outraged and sick to death of the tactics this administration uses to try to silence dissent to a war that is unjust, built and maintained on lies, political power, and greed. I was content to let others fight more loudly, but no more.
–Sharyn W., NC
I am a prior soldier who served in Iraq for 13 months, and am now an expecting mom with a husband who is deployed in Baghdad. I don't think I can ever forgive the Bush administration for the lies that tricked America into this war and hurt my family so badly. I am ashamed of those American politicians who would condemn an organization for practicing the Freedom of Speech that so many soldiers have died for.
–Danielle B., OH
As a US Navy veteran and an Iraq war veteran of over a year I want to ask, What has happened to us? What has happened to our voice? Where is this country going with stopping free speech and free press? ... Every time I think of the long nights I had in Anbar remembering what I was fighting for, well here it is....
–Ahmad H., LA
These folks have made sacrifices many of us can't imagine. Their charge to us was clear: keep speaking the truth about how President Bush and the Republicans have betrayed our trust.
So we're going to expand our ad campaign—keep it on the air longer and run it against other politicians who helped block adequate rest time for our troops. Can you chip in $10 to do it?
https://pol.moveon.org/donate/mcconnell.html?id=11275-2950289-O1n9u2&t=3
And still the messages kept coming ...
I've had three nephews serve since 2002, one of whom was killed in Anbar Province. I have a fourth nephew at Quantico training. I want this war over before he is deployed and before any more of our soldiers are sacrificed.
–Michele R., NE
Three members of my family are military. Two Marines have served in Iraq and an Army Lt. is deploying in November. If we had all spoken out when the administration used General Powell perhaps we would not be in this mess.
–Carol B., PA
As a Marine I served for many reasons but one of them was to allow people the freedom of speech, whether I agreed with it or not. Wearing a uniform does not mean someone isn't a shill, is spewing propaganda, and downright lies. MoveOn has every right to buy an ad and say what they want about a public figure. This administration has lied to us, deceived us, misled us and when posed with a challenge this is how they respond?
–Keith G., VA
The Senate won't pass a policy to end the war or even to make sure our troops in the field have enough rest time between deployments, but they hold votes to crack down on millions of Americans who are upset about the war?
Well—it isn't going to work. We put together a hard-hitting ad that highlights how Republicans failed our troops and if we can raise enough money today, we'll air it across the country. Please help if you can:
https://pol.moveon.org/donate/mcconnell.html?id=11275-2950289-O1n9u2&t=4
For all of us on the MoveOn staff, this week was a bit of a rollercoaster—MoveOn was attacked by nearly the entire Republican party, while too many Democrats ran for the hills. But what kept us going were messages like these—and the incredible privilege we feel to serve all 3.2 million Americans in MoveOn.org.
When the story is written of how the Iraq war ended, you will be the heroes. Thank you.
–Eli, Adam G., Adam R., Anna, Carrie, Daniel, Erik, Ilyse, Jennifer, Joan, Justin, Karin, Laura, Marika, Matt, Natalie, Nita, Noah, Tanya, Tom & Wes
MoveOn.org Political Action
Friday, September 21st, 2007
Yesterday, an amazing thing happened. After the Senate's shameful vote, and after President Bush called MoveOn "disgusting,"1 our email started to fill up with messages like this one:
I'm currently in Iraq. I do not agree with this war, and if I did support this war, it would not matter. You have the RIGHT to speak the truth. We KNOW that you support us. Thank you for speaking out for being our voice. We do not have a voice. We are overshooted by those who say that we soldiers do not support organizations like MoveOn. WE DO.
YOU ARE OUR voice.
And then came the donations. By midnight, over 12,000 people had donated $500,000—more than we've raised any day this year—for our new ad calling out the Republicans who blocked adequate rest for troops headed back to Iraq.
The message from MoveOn members was loud and clear: Don't back down. Take the fight back to the issues that matter.
So today we're shooting for a very ambitious goal: Reach $1 million so we can dramatically expand the campaign we launched yesterday going after politicians who support this awful war. Can you chip in $10 toward our goal?
https://pol.moveon.org/donate/mcconnell.html?id=11275-2950289-O1n9u2&t=2
All day, messages from vets and military family members kept pouring into our email, many of them aimed at the Senate:
I have given a son to this country. My brother, my father, my uncle have all served honorably and bravely. I am a loyal American. I am outraged and sick to death of the tactics this administration uses to try to silence dissent to a war that is unjust, built and maintained on lies, political power, and greed. I was content to let others fight more loudly, but no more.
–Sharyn W., NC
I am a prior soldier who served in Iraq for 13 months, and am now an expecting mom with a husband who is deployed in Baghdad. I don't think I can ever forgive the Bush administration for the lies that tricked America into this war and hurt my family so badly. I am ashamed of those American politicians who would condemn an organization for practicing the Freedom of Speech that so many soldiers have died for.
–Danielle B., OH
As a US Navy veteran and an Iraq war veteran of over a year I want to ask, What has happened to us? What has happened to our voice? Where is this country going with stopping free speech and free press? ... Every time I think of the long nights I had in Anbar remembering what I was fighting for, well here it is....
–Ahmad H., LA
These folks have made sacrifices many of us can't imagine. Their charge to us was clear: keep speaking the truth about how President Bush and the Republicans have betrayed our trust.
So we're going to expand our ad campaign—keep it on the air longer and run it against other politicians who helped block adequate rest time for our troops. Can you chip in $10 to do it?
https://pol.moveon.org/donate/mcconnell.html?id=11275-2950289-O1n9u2&t=3
And still the messages kept coming ...
I've had three nephews serve since 2002, one of whom was killed in Anbar Province. I have a fourth nephew at Quantico training. I want this war over before he is deployed and before any more of our soldiers are sacrificed.
–Michele R., NE
Three members of my family are military. Two Marines have served in Iraq and an Army Lt. is deploying in November. If we had all spoken out when the administration used General Powell perhaps we would not be in this mess.
–Carol B., PA
As a Marine I served for many reasons but one of them was to allow people the freedom of speech, whether I agreed with it or not. Wearing a uniform does not mean someone isn't a shill, is spewing propaganda, and downright lies. MoveOn has every right to buy an ad and say what they want about a public figure. This administration has lied to us, deceived us, misled us and when posed with a challenge this is how they respond?
–Keith G., VA
The Senate won't pass a policy to end the war or even to make sure our troops in the field have enough rest time between deployments, but they hold votes to crack down on millions of Americans who are upset about the war?
Well—it isn't going to work. We put together a hard-hitting ad that highlights how Republicans failed our troops and if we can raise enough money today, we'll air it across the country. Please help if you can:
https://pol.moveon.org/donate/mcconnell.html?id=11275-2950289-O1n9u2&t=4
For all of us on the MoveOn staff, this week was a bit of a rollercoaster—MoveOn was attacked by nearly the entire Republican party, while too many Democrats ran for the hills. But what kept us going were messages like these—and the incredible privilege we feel to serve all 3.2 million Americans in MoveOn.org.
When the story is written of how the Iraq war ended, you will be the heroes. Thank you.
–Eli, Adam G., Adam R., Anna, Carrie, Daniel, Erik, Ilyse, Jennifer, Joan, Justin, Karin, Laura, Marika, Matt, Natalie, Nita, Noah, Tanya, Tom & Wes
MoveOn.org Political Action
Friday, September 21st, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Julian Bond on the Supreme Court decision
We Must Persevere
Recently, the Supreme Court rendered a decision that makes school integration far more difficult. Civil rights leader Julian Bond responds.
By Julian Bond
At age 15, my grandfather, born into slavery and barely able to read and write, hitched his tuition -- a steer -- to a rope and walked 100 miles across Kentucky to knock on the door of Berea College. The school admitted him and, 14 years later, asked him to deliver the commencement address when he finally graduated.
"In every cloud," my grandfather said, the pessimist "beholds a destructive storm, in every flash of lightning an omen of evil, and in every shadow that falls across his path a lurking foe. He forgets that the clouds also bring life and hope, that lightning purifies the atmosphere, that shadow and darkness prepare for sunshine and growth, and that hardships and adversity nerve the race, as the individual, for greater efforts and grander victories."
This summer, I thought of my grandfather and his steadfast optimism as I read the deeply divided Supreme Court's 169-page decision on school integration, a ruling that severely undercuts our nation's ability to provide equal educational opportunities for its children. Four conservative members of the Court went so far as to suggest that our schools may not take race into account to combat "de facto" segregation and the injuries it inflicts.
How very far we have fallen since that Spring day in 1954 when a unanimous Supreme Court mustered the moral courage in Brown v. Board of Education to demand, in 11 simple and eloquent pages, that our nation afford equal -- and integrated -- educational opportunities, so that our shameful tradition of white supremacy might be undone. How very hard it is to maintain optimism -- to see the sunshine my grandfather always saw behind dark clouds -- when contemplating what the Court has done in 2007.
Our schools have long been held up as our most important democratic institution, pathways to class mobility and generational progress. A public educational system that is fully integrated and treats minorities and whites equally is the antithesis of the larger society, which has been and remains profoundly segregated and unequal.
I once heard Minnijean Brown reflect on her experiences as one of the heroic Little Rock Nine who integrated Central High School in 1957. Someone asked why she kept coming back to school day after day, despite daily harassment and intimidation that would have driven most people away.
From the ferocity of her enemies, she said, "I knew there was something precious inside that school," and she was more determined to get it than they were to keep it from her grasp. Minnijean and the Supreme Court Justices who delivered and supported Brown understood schools as pathways to righting the wrongs of societal racism.
But today's Supreme Court has embraced another vision for American education: schooling as an instrument for reproducing the class and race privilege of the larger society. At the dawn of the 21st century, one in six African American children still attended what researchers call "apartheid schools" -- schools that are virtually 100% children of color -- and no school district in America has managed to create equal educational opportunities within these schools on a large scale or in a sustained manner, particularly at the secondary level.
Today's Court has turned its back on the millions of black and Latino children currently trapped in highly segregated, underperforming schools, leaving them to hang on the ropes of racial and economic disenfranchisement. The Court has paved the way for many more children of color to join them by outlawing the modest means numerous districts have adopted to promote racial diversity and overcome racial isolation. It has denied the very notion that our nation's schools should serve as equalizers.
Three years ago, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision, the country asked itself whether our nation had fulfilled Brown's promise. Many emphasized that Brown had brought about a sea change in American life — tearing down the walls of segregation and serving as an impetus for equal rights for groups other than African Americans. Others pointed to the facts that our schools were resegregating and that society was still marked by stark inequalities. The Supreme Court’s recent decision is likely to be remembered as Brown’s final epitaph.
I think again of my grandfather, a man who walked 100 miles to a college that had not admitted him and who, once accepted, labored 14 years for his diploma. His actions are what speak most profoundly to me in this moment: We must persevere. We must strengthen our resolve against the destructive storm that has descended upon us.
If schools can no longer be used to address our country’s racist traditions, then we as a country must attack racism by other means. If our schools are no longer allowed to offset the consequences of persistent residential segregation, for example, then we as a country must attack the problem directly. If our schools are not allowed to serve as equalizers towards remedying the vast inequalities that continue to fester in our country, then we as a country must confront those inequalities head-on. If we cannot rely on the courts, then we must lobby the legislatures.
Only with a renewed commitment will we be prepared to undertake, as my grandfather would have said, the "greater efforts" towards the "grander victories" this new era requires. Only with renewed commitment can our country become the nation it should be. Only with renewed commitment will we fulfill the promise of Brown.
Julian Bond has served as chair of the NAACP Board of Directors since 1998 and is president emeritus and a board member of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which publishes Teaching Tolerance magazine. He is a distinguished professor in the School of Government at American University in Washington, DC, and a professor of history at the University of Virginia.
Recently, the Supreme Court rendered a decision that makes school integration far more difficult. Civil rights leader Julian Bond responds.
By Julian Bond
At age 15, my grandfather, born into slavery and barely able to read and write, hitched his tuition -- a steer -- to a rope and walked 100 miles across Kentucky to knock on the door of Berea College. The school admitted him and, 14 years later, asked him to deliver the commencement address when he finally graduated.
"In every cloud," my grandfather said, the pessimist "beholds a destructive storm, in every flash of lightning an omen of evil, and in every shadow that falls across his path a lurking foe. He forgets that the clouds also bring life and hope, that lightning purifies the atmosphere, that shadow and darkness prepare for sunshine and growth, and that hardships and adversity nerve the race, as the individual, for greater efforts and grander victories."
This summer, I thought of my grandfather and his steadfast optimism as I read the deeply divided Supreme Court's 169-page decision on school integration, a ruling that severely undercuts our nation's ability to provide equal educational opportunities for its children. Four conservative members of the Court went so far as to suggest that our schools may not take race into account to combat "de facto" segregation and the injuries it inflicts.
How very far we have fallen since that Spring day in 1954 when a unanimous Supreme Court mustered the moral courage in Brown v. Board of Education to demand, in 11 simple and eloquent pages, that our nation afford equal -- and integrated -- educational opportunities, so that our shameful tradition of white supremacy might be undone. How very hard it is to maintain optimism -- to see the sunshine my grandfather always saw behind dark clouds -- when contemplating what the Court has done in 2007.
Our schools have long been held up as our most important democratic institution, pathways to class mobility and generational progress. A public educational system that is fully integrated and treats minorities and whites equally is the antithesis of the larger society, which has been and remains profoundly segregated and unequal.
I once heard Minnijean Brown reflect on her experiences as one of the heroic Little Rock Nine who integrated Central High School in 1957. Someone asked why she kept coming back to school day after day, despite daily harassment and intimidation that would have driven most people away.
From the ferocity of her enemies, she said, "I knew there was something precious inside that school," and she was more determined to get it than they were to keep it from her grasp. Minnijean and the Supreme Court Justices who delivered and supported Brown understood schools as pathways to righting the wrongs of societal racism.
But today's Supreme Court has embraced another vision for American education: schooling as an instrument for reproducing the class and race privilege of the larger society. At the dawn of the 21st century, one in six African American children still attended what researchers call "apartheid schools" -- schools that are virtually 100% children of color -- and no school district in America has managed to create equal educational opportunities within these schools on a large scale or in a sustained manner, particularly at the secondary level.
Today's Court has turned its back on the millions of black and Latino children currently trapped in highly segregated, underperforming schools, leaving them to hang on the ropes of racial and economic disenfranchisement. The Court has paved the way for many more children of color to join them by outlawing the modest means numerous districts have adopted to promote racial diversity and overcome racial isolation. It has denied the very notion that our nation's schools should serve as equalizers.
Three years ago, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision, the country asked itself whether our nation had fulfilled Brown's promise. Many emphasized that Brown had brought about a sea change in American life — tearing down the walls of segregation and serving as an impetus for equal rights for groups other than African Americans. Others pointed to the facts that our schools were resegregating and that society was still marked by stark inequalities. The Supreme Court’s recent decision is likely to be remembered as Brown’s final epitaph.
I think again of my grandfather, a man who walked 100 miles to a college that had not admitted him and who, once accepted, labored 14 years for his diploma. His actions are what speak most profoundly to me in this moment: We must persevere. We must strengthen our resolve against the destructive storm that has descended upon us.
If schools can no longer be used to address our country’s racist traditions, then we as a country must attack racism by other means. If our schools are no longer allowed to offset the consequences of persistent residential segregation, for example, then we as a country must attack the problem directly. If our schools are not allowed to serve as equalizers towards remedying the vast inequalities that continue to fester in our country, then we as a country must confront those inequalities head-on. If we cannot rely on the courts, then we must lobby the legislatures.
Only with a renewed commitment will we be prepared to undertake, as my grandfather would have said, the "greater efforts" towards the "grander victories" this new era requires. Only with renewed commitment can our country become the nation it should be. Only with renewed commitment will we fulfill the promise of Brown.
Julian Bond has served as chair of the NAACP Board of Directors since 1998 and is president emeritus and a board member of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which publishes Teaching Tolerance magazine. He is a distinguished professor in the School of Government at American University in Washington, DC, and a professor of history at the University of Virginia.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Billions over Baghdad
Two excellent reporters, Donald Bartlett and James B. Steele, tell the story of corruption in Iraq.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/iraq_billions200710
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/10/iraq_billions200710
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